Melting Snowflakes
by Anna Greenway
Summary: A plane crash in the mountains. A story of friendship.
1. Chapter 1

_I'm going to be perfectly honest - if I had my way, I wouldn't be posting this. It was written in about 2003, and was one of my early works. Looking back, it's certainly not my best writing, and it's interesting to see how my writing has changed over the years. However, I do keep receiving PMs from people asking how they can get hold of this, and so I suppose I'll make it easier for everyone if I post it on here. That way the entire series is now on here. It did cross my mind to perhaps rewrite this one - until I saw how long it is and I really don't have the time. However for the ones who wanted it, here it is._

* * *

TITLE: Melting Snowflakes

AUTHOR: Anna Greenway

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RATING: Strong PG-13 to low R, for cannibalism and some bad language

CATEGORY: Friendship, Minor Character Deaths, D/R UST

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. I'm just borrowing them for a bit of fun.

SUMMARY: When a plane of FBI agents crashes in Canada in the middle of winter, the agents on board must come together to fight for their survival.

TIMELINE: I live in an imaginary world where Mulder, Scully, Doggett and Reyes are all friends, and all working happily within the FBI at the same time. A bit of an alternate season nine. I don't think the timeline is important, but if you're curious, then that's where I am.

ARCHIVE: Please let me know.

NOTE: Although this fic features a few minor character deaths and some Doggett/Reyes UST, the story is about the strength of friendship in extreme conditions. A lot of friendship between various characters is covered, but it is the friendship between Doggett, Reyes, Scully and Mulder which is the theme of the story. And a huge thank you to Lisa for betaing this for me!

*  
Reyes POV *  
MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, CANADA Airport , 7.11am

"Pick a hand."

I stared at John's hands, stretched out lazily in front of him, clenched in to fists. It took a second for the words to reach my ears, and at least another ten before the message fought its way through my sleepy brain enough to be interpreted.

"What's the catch?" I asked, looking up at his face again. He was slumped in the chair next to me, the past week having taken a heavy toll on him. His posture was mirrored to some extent by the rest of the agents waiting in the room with us. All were exhausted, and had taken to excess amounts of caffeine to keep them awake long enough for the flight back home.

"Catch is, if you pick the hand with the money in it then you get the job of going to buy some coffee."

I had been leaning towards picking his left hand, but I immediately cut the thought off. "You don't think we've had enough already?"

He gave me a look of impatience and held out his fists for me again. "Come on, Monica. Fair deal. You pick the right hand and you have to go. Pick the wrong one and I'll do it. Which hand?"

I wasn't going to back down. Rolling my neck around on the back of the seat, I gave him what I hoped was a pleading, pathetic pout. "What if I don't want coffee?"

But John had taken the same class in stubbornness that I had, and he didn't lower his hands. "Hate to tell you this, but I think you might need it." He looked me up and down with a smirk. First to my feet, which were bare, having taken off my uncomfortable heels about twenty minutes ago. Then he looked up to my badly wrinkled pants, up to my jacket which I was hugging to myself, and then to my hair. He lingered there, making me calculate exactly how long it had been since I had last brushed it.

He was lucky I didn't have any energy left, or I might have hit him. "Thanks, and you don't look so great yourself, by the way."

He didn't even stop to think. "Left or right?"

I paused, knowing that it was unlikely I was going to win this one. I looked between his hands, trying to consider which one to choose. Just when I had raised my hand to point to his left, we were interrupted by Scully and Mulder coming around the corner. They both looked very cheerful, compared to the rest of us. Somehow, they had been given the easiest jobs in the whole task force, and while the rest of us had been interviewing and scouring the country for five days, they had been back in the luxury of the heated office. So while the rest of us were ready to collapse in to a coma any second, they had been talking quietly, looking almost recognisable as their normal selves.

"Take this," said Scully, handing a cup of coffee to each of us.

"Thank you," I said, taking the coffee from her, and beside me John echoed my thanks.

"You're welcome. By the time you two finished arguing we could be back in D.C.," she said, giving us an amused smile. She stepped back and sat herself down in a chair opposite us, Mulder sitting beside her.

I took a sip of the coffee, enjoying the warmth as I swallowed. I sighed and lowered the cup again. "Just tired, that's all." I looked up around the room at the other agents. I had no problems admitting I was tired when I knew that the feelings were shared by everyone else in the room. I then checked my watch. 7.15am. How much longer would we have to wait?

"Won't be long," said Mulder, obviously reading my mind. "They said it was only going to be another few minutes. The weather's clearing now."

I nodded, not exactly convinced. We had been delayed for two hours already.

"Here," John said, and suddenly threw the coin he had been holding across to Scully. She caught it just as it was about to hit her face. "For the coffee," he said, lifting it to his lips again.

Scully pocketed it without question, and then spent a minute or so studying us. She looked at me much the same as John had only a minute before. It was identical except for the look of pity. John hadn't had enough energy to feel sorry for me. Then her eyes crossed to John and after another minute she sighed. "When we get back, we'll give you a lift home, ok?"

John and I both opened our mouths, ready to tell her that it wasn't necessary, but just then a flight attendant came in and announced that it was finally time to go, and before either of us had a chance to say anything, they had stood up, ready to leave.

*

The jet had been chartered for the use of the FBI. The case had involved a massive search for three men who had murdered a few people in New York. They had been found by the authorities in Canada, and the FBI had brought in a team to help track them down. The remote location to which the three men had escaped meant a few things. First, that the FBI had had to charter its own plane to get everyone out there. And second, that the small town which normally lived in peace was paralysed with fear of a repeat of the attacks. The case became high profile and every available FBI agent and Canadian policeman was brought in to help. It had meant a row of sleepless nights for most of us, especially Skinner and Brad, who as Assistant Directors had spent the whole time in front of the cameras, trying to reassure the people that we were doing everything we could. I say trying to because no one had believed them. No matter how hard we worked, they still thought that we weren't doing enough. Such is the nature of fear.

But now it had ended, and we were flying back to Vancouver, and from there would get a flight back home. John and I were near the front of the plane, me next to the window. Maybe the chair was comfortable, or maybe I was just so tired that anything felt comfortable, but either way, I knew it would be a struggle to say awake till we got home.

It seemed John noticed. "Go to sleep, Monica. We'll wake you when we land."

He was referring to Mulder and Scully. They were sitting across the aisle from us, and it was obvious that they would be awake the whole trip.

"I'd rather have a long sleep later than a short one now," I replied. I looked out the window at the ground. We were ready for take off.

He shrugged and rearranged himself in the seat, leaning back. "I'd rather take both."

He fell asleep in seconds.

I sighed and focused my attention out the window. I don't know how they claimed that the weather had cleared. To me, there was no change. The grey clouds never seemed to end. Each one merged in to the next, forming a huge dark blanket. The wind was lashing out at the ground, throwing around loose pieces of paper and threatening to break all the blades of grass in half. It was not raining or snowing at the moment, but the ground was still soaked from the afternoon, and there was a cold dampness in the air that told me it would not be long before it returned. I did up the last button on my jacket, even managing to feel the cold through the walls of the plane.

It might only be a half hour flight, but it was going to be an exceptionally long half hour.

*

I turned out to be more right about that than I'd ever imagined.

Everything went fine until we reached the mountains. At first they could only be seen in the distance, but then we started climbing and they came in to full view. So much for the weather being clear. I was glad that they had technology up front, because there was no chance of being able to fly on vision alone. I could not see out the window for the clouds. It had started raining, and as we climbed, I knew it was going to be snowing.

The plane had been silent. Some of the agents were sleeping, and those that weren't had fallen in to silence. Even Mulder and Scully, were being unusually quiet.

With the plane in silence, I could hear everything. Every breath of wind, every bit of rain and every breath that John breathed. At first the wind started to tickle the plane, just a gentle whistle, but it soon became a gale, and I suddenly envied John. He was sleeping through it. Maybe I should have done that, too.

The wind turned to a screech, and I gripped the edge of the seat. Turbulence. Happened all the time. I took a deep breath and glanced across at John. He was still sleeping. I looked up at Mulder. He had his eyes open, but did not look alarmed. His fingers were hovering over Scully's hand, and she seemed to be a little concerned, like me.

The plane dipped. I gripped the seat harder.

John jumped awake. "What the hell was that?"

"I dunno..." I said, locking eyes with him. The plane dipped again and John swore, gripping the edge of the seat like me. Behind us, someone gasped. I think it was Brad. He hated flying.

In a panic, I looked out the window. Before, I could not see the mountains through the clouds. Now, though, I could see the peaks, fading in and out of view. I took another deep breath, but just as my mouth was half open, the plane fell again. This time, an alarm sounded. I glanced across at the others. Mulder's hand was now holding Scully's tight, and even he was starting to look a little concerned now.

The alarm contrasted the screeching of the wind, and my ears were ready to burst.

"It's nothing," John said, "probably happens all the time at this altitude."

I don't know who he was trying to convince. His face had already been pale with tiredness, but now he was white, as were his knuckles, his hands gripping the edge of the seat.

Someone got out of their seat and started to make their way to the front, hanging on to all the seats as they went. It was Brad. It figured. He was the type who hated not knowing what was happening. We all watched him go, but no one stopped him. No one tried to reassure him that it was normal. We all wanted answers just as much as he did.

He had just reached the row in front of us when the plane lurched again. He tried to hang on, but lost his footing and was knocked to the floor. Kim, who was in the aisle seat in front of Mulder, kindly reached down and put a hand under his elbow, helping him up.

"Are you all right, sir?" she shouted, over the alarms and the wind.

He took a deep breath and carefully got to his feet, as if expecting the floor to fall out from under his feet at any second.

"Fine..." he said, nodding. Gripping the back of her seat, he then continued to make his way to the front.

John suddenly leaned over me to look out the window. His eyes went wide and he pointed out a finger to the clouds. "Tell me that's not what I think it is."

I ignored the fact that he was so close to me that I could actually smell him, and looked out the window, my eyes searching for whatever he was looking at.

My heart skipped a beat. It was hard to separate the snow-capped mountains from the white clouds, but after a split second I managed it, and I couldn't believe my eyes. I was sure that we weren't meant to be that close. Not that low to the mountains. The was a forest off to the side, and I could actually see each and every individual branch. We weren't clearing it by much at all. And further ahead, as the forest cleared to long slopes of snow and ice, the peak of the mountain seemed to be in front of us. In front of us, not below us as it should've been.

"John!" I yelled. I started to gasp for breath. Too close... it was all too close and we were too low...

John sat back in his seat and gripped the seat with a renewed determination. I did the same. If we were going to hit, I would have to try and stay in my seat.

"Get down! Everybody hold on!"

Brad. He came back in to view. He was trying to hurry back to his seat, but the plane started to tilt on an angle and he found it impossible to walk. He fell on an angle around Kim's chair again, and didn't bother to get up, instead gripping the first solid thing he could put his hands on.

A split second after we hit. I didn't have time to think. I didn't check if anyone else was all right. All I had time to do was hang on so tight that my fingers were threatening to break and hope that the items falling down from above would all miss my head. Someone screamed - I think it was Kim. The alarms seemed louder than ever. The plane started lifting up again as the pilots tried to clear the ground. I wasn't brave enough to look out the window to see what we were trying to miss. I prepared myself, and then suddenly we were flying up and over whatever it was. The front half of the plane had cleared it. But then there was deafening crack at the rear of the plane, and a screech as it hit what could only be rocks. The front of the plane then slowed and gradually slid past the rocks to the soft snow, where it silently stopped moving.

The lights went out, and then there was silence.

*

I took a deep breath, breathing in the freezing mountain air. Shit it was cold. I would have preferred to have taken a moment to prepare myself for opening my eyes. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to see what I thought I would see. However, I didn't end up getting a choice. The moment I heard the groans and the screams of the other passengers, it seemed a natural human reaction to look.

And for a glorious, split second, everything seemed normal. The seats in front of me were in place, and those sitting around me appeared to be all right. A second later I realised that that couldn't be right, because there were still screams coming from behind me.

I met John's eyes. He only looked at me long enough to deduct that I was all right, and then turned his attention to the others. Mulder was fine, but seemed to be taking a moment to process what had happened. He was in shock. Scully let her eyes sweep over him to John and I, and then to Skinner and Kim in the row in front, checking they were alive.

"Help, help! I need help!"

I pushed myself out of my seat, right behind John, and we entered the aisle. The plane had crashed in to the snow on an angle, meaning that it was hard to walk. For a few steps I was able to use the seats to help myself walk, but then I saw that the back seats in the plane, where the plane had split in two, were all lying over the floor, and the passengers that had been in them were lying among the rubble, moaning.

"Oh my God," I said. There were that many who appeared to be injured that I didn't know where to start. At my feet, an agent was lying in a ball, hugging his knees. He was not breathing, but taking in very short gasps of air, holding his chest. There didn't appear to be any blood. Next to him, his partner was against the wall, blood freely flowing down the side of his face. He was dead. The eeriest part was that his face was still frozen in to shock, his face preserving the moment when he had realised we were going to crash.

I didn't have time to stare. John had crossed to a woman on the floor, who was lying with a chair across her stomach. She had her face screwed up in pain and was shouting nonsense. It was words, but it was nothing that made sense. She was shaking her head from side to side. I saw John put his hands on the seat, as if to remove it, but then he hesitated, clearly not sure if he should.

Next to the woman was another dead agent. This time, I didn't pause to stare at the look on his face. The screams continued, and I began to work faster. Behind John and the woman, I estimated there to be at least ten more dead agents, and many injured. Those in the rear of the plane, the broken part, had received most of the blow.

Something from my first aid training flashed in to my mind. In a scene of multiple injuries, you should always go for the quiet people first. The wind nearly knocked me off my feet. Part of the plane was open, and the wind was rushing in. The air was so cold to breathe. I quickly scanned the injuries. The chest injury agent who John was sitting with had grown quiet. I didn't like to think what that meant. There appeared to be numerous broken limbs. In fact, the only people who seemed unharmed were ourselves, as we had been lucky enough to be up the front of the plane.

I was going to see if there was anything I could do for the man holding his chest when Scully shouted out.

"Monica!"

I slowly turned around, resisting the wind which was threatening to blow me off my feet. My cold feet, I might add.

Scully was walking toward me, Mulder behind her. Scully was only in her shirt, looking like we had just crashed on a tropical island, instead of a snow-covered mountain range. But I didn't question her, there wasn't time. I walked toward her, willing to let her take over the role of doctor. There were reasons I never considered it as a career. My knowledge of medicine was limited, and seeing so many people injured wasn't something I was used to. I had learnt enough only to use first aid, and for making sure I could handle staring at dead bodies during cases. That was the extent of it for me, and I knew that there was little I could do to help these people, our fellow agents.

She didn't even stop to talk to me. She was already kneeling down, examining the man who was holding his chest. She glanced over her shoulder. "Help Holly."

Holly was back up near the front, behind the seats which Mulder and Scully had been sitting in. She was on the floor, leaning against the wall, holding her leg. The door to the pilot's cabin had been opened, and I assumed that that was where Skinner and Brad had disappeared to. Help. Of course, they would be sending out a help signal.

I knelt down beside her and put my hand on her shoulder. She was trying to press down on her leg to stop the blood flow, but she seemed weak with the effort. Tears were appearing in her eyes, but she held them back. Maybe she knew there was no point in crying.

I moved my hands to hers. "I'll do it. You sit back."

She removed her hands without protest and leaned back against the wall. I took the jacket, which at least explained why Scully was without one, and pressed it down hard against the blood. Holly stared vaguely off in the direction of the others. "They're dead, aren't they?"

I wanted to deny it. She was already in enough pain without having to worry about everyone else. But at the same time, there was no point in denying the situation. She wasn't a child. She had a right to know the score.

"Some people are hurt bad," I said weakly. I glanced over at Scully, who was sitting in front of an agent I recognised as Colton. He had blood pouring down his face and all over his left shoulder, but his arm was still strong enough to be strangling Scully's hand. I had learnt to read her face. I knew she wanted to pull away to look at others, but was having trouble with the thought of telling him to let go. He was dying.

I focused my attention back on Holly's leg, lifting up Dana's jacket just a little to check the blood flow underneath. I shouldn't have bothered. I could feel it soaking through. I pressed down harder. "How bad does it hurt?"

But her attention was focused off on Scully still. I looked up to Holly's face, momentarily worried that her lack of response might have been due to her health. Then I looked up to Scully and Colton.

"Help me," he gasped out. Judging by the blood on his head, I guessed he had a head injury and so it was impressive that he was holding her hand with such force.

"You'll be all right, Tom. You're going to be fine! I just have to help some others right now, ok?" Scully said to him. There was no panic in her voice. She said it with the same certainty she'd use as though the sun was going to rise tomorrow. "Please let go, Tom. I'll be right back."

But Tom wouldn't resist. "Kill me..."

"No, no," Scully said quickly, and squeezed his hand even tighter. "You're not going to die. You'll be fine." I noticed Mulder had stepped forward and was now kneeling beside her.

"Kill me..." Colton whispered.

Scully lowered her eyes. I knew that she was caught. She could pull her hand away by force, and that way get to look at the others also injured, but she was worried by the psychological consequences on him if she did. In the end it was Mulder who helped her.

"Relax, Tom," Mulder said, putting his hand on Colton's upper arm. "You'll be fine."

Colton glared at Mulder and loosened his hand on Scully's, allowing her to slip away to the injured woman John was still sitting with.

I looked back to Holly, who was still staring at Colton. The tears in her eyes began to slip out.

"We'll be fine," I said, bringing her attention back to her own leg. She looked down at all the blood and she started to go pale. The blood had soaked through Scully's jacket and was now seeping in between my fingers.

I would have held her hand to calm her, but both my hands were busy. Scully stood up. The woman John had been trying to calm had died. Scully put a hand on John's shoulder briefly before looking around at the others. Most were dead now. Then she looked back to Holly and whispered something to Kim, who was at her side, waiting for some kind of instruction of how she could help.

Kim immediately came over and sat down on the other side of Holly, blocking everyone from view. She slid an arm around Holly's shoulders and held her close. Holly was growing more pale by the second.

Scully rushed past in to the pilot's cabin, presumably to check on the crew. The only thing I could hear now was the wind, interrupted only by short gasps for breath by Holly. Kim didn't bother to say anything to calm her. There was no point in muttering nonsense words. Kim just held her, and slowly that seemed to work.

John came and knelt beside me. With my hands still holding the jacket to Holly's leg, I leant toward him, not wanting Holly to overhear. "How are they?"

He put an arm around me very briefly and squeezed my shoulder as he leant toward my ear. "Most dead, some unconscious."

I nodded and looked back down at my hands. John let his arm fall and brought both his hands around to help. While he peeked beneath the jacket and directed movements to make it sit better, I looked behind his back, over to the hole in the plane. It was freezing out there, but with a little luck, our rescue would be very fast.

Scully, Skinner and Brad emerged from the pilot's cabin.

"Dead," Scully reported, with a disturbing lack of emotion.

Brad made his way past us to stand with Mulder. They were near the opening in the plane, half watching over the unconscious agents on the floor, and half looking out in to the weather, their hair blowing back with the wind, worried about our situation.

"Is the radio working? Did you send a message?" John asked, looking hopefully up at Skinner.

"It's all dead," Skinner said, not meeting John's eyes. "We'll just have to wait for them to find us."

"It'll be fine," I said. "They'll know where we went down. They should be up here in a few hours. We just have to manage until they do."

Mulder turned around, facing us again. "The wind's picking up and the temperature's dropping. It might start snowing soon."

We all looked at each other. My eyes lingered on Scully. Her arms were now around her waist, hugging herself. Now that she had stopped moving, the urgency in assessing everyone's injuries passed, she was realising how cold it was.

John seemed to have a good grip on Holly's leg, so I removed my hands and stood up. "We have to get organised."

"I agree," Mulder said. His quick answer led me to believe that he'd been thinking along the same lines. "We need to find our luggage, and get warm clothing for everyone. And we need to block up this hole, in case a blizzard strikes."

I looked down at the mess of bodies on the floor. John was right. Most were dead, and the few that weren't were unconscious. I hoped that we could just make them hold on till help arrived. But in the meantime, there was still a mess of chairs everywhere, and combined with the bodies, there wasn't much room to move. If we had to survive a few hours, and look after injured agents, we needed to make it as comfortable as possible, and that involved a clean up.

"We should tidy things up. Rearrange a few things." I wasn't about to tell them that I thought we should dump the dead bodies out in to the snow, but I didn't have to. They would figure out what I meant.

"Okay," said Brad. He appeared to have recovered from the shock of our crash and was now resuming the role of leader. "Doggett, Mulder, Monica and me will go over to the rest of the plane and get the warm clothes and other supplies. Scully, you should stay here and watch over our friends here." He waved down at the unconscious bodies on the floor. "When we get back, we'll clean up the mess and uh... then take things from there."

I moved to the door with John, Scully dropping to her knees to take over responsibility of Holly's wound. Brad was working his way in to the snow, jacket flying up in the air behind him, and I was approaching to follow him, but John held a hand out to stop him.

"Wait," he said, and looked down at my feet. "You're not considering going out wearing those, are you?"

I looked down at my feet, spotting my FBI heels. "Good point."

Just then Kim shouted out. "I'll go." She was dressed fairly casually, her background role in the case not demanding the same state of clothing the rest of us had. She was still in jeans and runners, suitable for her hours of walking she had done among the shelves of archives in her background research for the case.

She meant to rise to her feet, but Holly didn't seem to want to let her go. Kim hesitated, but then realised that Holly wanted to tell her something. She let Holly lean forward and whisper something in her ear. When she pulled away, the look on Kim's face was full of concern. However, she covered it extremely fast and got up to catch up to John, who had just followed Mulder and Brad out in to the snow. The second half of the plane wasn't far away. Even though it was a struggle to get through the snow, it would not take long.

I made my way back to Holly, Scully and Skinner, and took over Kim's place. I put an arm around Holly's shoulders, softly rubbing her back, and she rested her head on my shoulder, already weak from the pain and blood loss.

*

We were considering going out to look for them, when they returned. They had taken longer than we thought they would, but it soon became apparent why.

"Snow's so deep, we couldn't carry everyone's bags across," Brad said, entering with a stack of clothing in his arms. "We went through the bags and picked out the warmest clothing. Hope you don't mind."

Scully looked up. "Under the circumstances, I couldn't care less."

I had to agree. John came in and sat down beside me, putting a stack of clothing on the floor between us. Holly sat herself up and I let go of her. Kim came around Holly's other side, and after glancing at John to see that he wasn't looking, slipped a few tampons in to Holly's hand. Holly looked around, appearing nervous that one of the men would see, and quickly slipped them in to the pocket of her jacket.

My heart went out to her instantly. We had crashed, she had her leg torn open, and now she was unfortunate enough to have yet another thing to worry about. I was lucky. I still had another two weeks.

"Monica, I got these for you," John said. He dumped a sweater, jacket, pants and socks in front of me.

"These aren't mine," I said, picking up the navy blue socks and handing them back to him.

"They're mine," he said. "But you didn't bring any and up here you'll need them." He looked back down to my feet, which would be bare if it weren't for the shoes.

"Got these, too," he said, and nervously pulled out an old pair of running shoes from behind his back.

I took them. I would have smiled if I wasn't sharing the crashed plane with so many dead bodies. Instead I looked up in to his eyes and nodded. I knew that they were his spare pair that he brought along with him for jogging.

"Thanks, John."

He almost smiled in return, but seemed to be held back by the same thing that I was. The situation was too upsetting to smile. I took a deep breath and tried to block out my feelings about the bodies and injured. I could not help anyone if I let myself get upset. If I was going to help Holly, and the unconscious agents across the other side, I would have to defer my emotional reaction until we were back home.

John turned away and pulled off his own jacket, putting on another shirt underneath to defend against the cold. He also put on another pair of pants, and an extra pair of socks. Standing up, I took the clothes he had brought from my bag and started to put on a second layer.

Everyone else did the same. We all looked large. The look was highly unfashionable and made it a little harder to move around, but the temperature was dropping each minute, and if we wanted to survive the freezing temperatures, then it required a certain amount of warmth. Mulder had brought over extra clothes for those who were unconscious, and after reassurances from Dana that we wouldn't hurt them, we put the clothes carefully over them to keep them warm. Kim helped Holly put on a few extra clothes. Holly started apologising for being so much trouble, but Kim told her not to be ridiculous and she stopped after that.

When we finished dressing, we stood around, looking at the dead bodies. Their stares were the worst part for me. I couldn't shake it out of my mind. It was a look I knew I wouldn't be able to forget. When I next slept, it was going to haunt my dreams.

"We have to move them," Brad said, looking down at the dead woman. He was pale, and I knew he was terrified of the idea of having to touch her. I held back, too, with the exact same thought. Only minutes ago they had been ordinary, lively people. They had been sitting on the plane with us, flying over the Rockies to Vancouver, and were relatively happy. They were joking about how tired they were, perhaps going over facts of the case in preparation for their report, but now... now they were lying dead at my feet. The last thing I wanted to do was drag them out in to the snow. I still had a feeling that it would harm them. I felt like I was going to freeze them if I put them out there. I felt disrespectful. Dragging a fellow agent out in to the snow to make more room for me felt selfish. I looked back up to Mulder and Skinner, who were standing with us and were hesitating just the same.

"We have to do it," Skinner said. He looked around at us, looking for support. But none came.

"Rescue shouldn't be long," Brad said quickly. "We can leave them here. No point in putting them out there, they'll just get lost in the snow."

On some level, I agreed with him. But though I didn't want to drag them out, I wasn't sure I could stand having their eyes stare at me for the next few hours. I wanted a chance to look away from them.

There was silence. No one had the courage to come out and make the first step. We all looked at the floor, trying not to look at each other, or at any of the bodies.

Behind me I heard Scully sigh. When I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, I saw her pause with a bandage half wrapped around Holly's leg. She had found a first aid kit in the cabin and had started to clean up the wound. "Kim, can you take over?"

Kim obediently continued to wrap the white strip around Holly's leg, and Dana pushed herself to her feet and walked over to us.

"Come on. Now's not the time to get queasy," she said, walking in to the middle of the circle and kneeling straight down beside the dead woman. "We'll leave them where we can find them."

Still no one moved to help her. It was easier for her. She had years of experience of dealing with dead bodies. I was still in the first thirty seconds of my training.

"They'll be better preserved in the snow," she said. "They'll be in better condition for the families."

That was enough to persuade us. If we were able to see it from a point of view that we were helping, then it was manageable. I glanced across to John. He was taking a deep breath, preparing himself for the task. Mulder's jaw was set, as if he was blocking out everything he was doing. Brad still looked like he was going to throw up any second, but slowly turned away and made his way over to the man who had had the head injury. Skinner followed him. I moved to take the other side of the body to Dana, ready to help her move the woman out of the way.

The altitude was slightly noticeable. Every movement required a little extra effort than it did at home. It was something that became obvious when we started to drag her out.

I didn't look at her. I didn't look at anyone, not even Dana. I fixed my eyes on the plane, and on the snow that I stepped in to. I focused my mind on the snow, and the cold, anything that my mind could access that allowed me to block out the fact that I was dragging a dead FBI agent out in to the snow. If it had been anyone else, I might have been able to deal with it. If it had been a stranger, and not someone who I frequently saw around the Hoover building, I would have had a little more strength. But I knew her. I recognised most of the dead, and it was unbelievably disturbing. But as Dana had said, now wasn't the time to get queasy. It was only her appeal to our FBI strength that kept us going. We all hated it, but none of us wanted to be the one to break down and cry. We all refused to be seen as weak. So instead we slowly moved around, dragging the bodies in silence and lying them out in a straight line in the snow, near the wall to the plane.

When they were all in a straight line, we stopped and paused for breath. There were eleven dead in total, and even as we put them out on the snow, new snow started to fall, lightly covering their faces with snowflakes.

Yet none of us moved. We knew that the snow would soon bury them.

"I feel like we should say something," Skinner said, looking confused as he stared at Colton, the white snow covering the blood on his face.

"Like a prayer?" Mulder asked.

Skinner shrugged. "I just... it doesn't make sense. I mean, to crash and... what do you say?" He trailed off, struggling to find words for the mess of thoughts inside.

"We'll give them a funeral," I said. I didn't want to think about saying goodbye already. "We'll take them back, and do it properly. You don't have to say anything now."

Skinner just stared down at the bodies, now half covered in snow. We were getting covered in it, too.

"Can't hurt, though," Brad muttered, still deathly pale. It amazed me that he was the assistant director and yet he seemed to be the weakest. Brad was a great friend to me, and I wanted to care about him, but I was having enough trouble dealing with my own feelings about the agents lying in front of me.

We stood in silence for a few more minutes. John was at my side, and he started to shiver. Skinner was no longer able to find any words at all. He opened his mouth a few times to try, but every time he failed and shook his head, falling back in to silence again. Dana was the one with the cross around her neck, and if we were going to say anything religious, I thought that she would have been the one to start it. But she stayed silent, looking not at the bodies, but off in to the distance at the hills around us. In some ways, this required more strength than looking at the bodies. The isolation, and freezing temperatures weren't something I wanted to think about. But the more we stood in silence, indulging in each others confusion and emotions, the more likely the prospect of freezing became. John looked across to me, his eyes telling me that he couldn't stand it any longer, and suddenly I felt the urge to say something. It was true that I did not want to say goodbye. I had already told Skinner that we didn't need to say anything yet. But if it helped us get our emotions together, then I would be the first to face it.

So I searched my brain for something to say. "Lord..." I started, taking a deep breath as I considered how long it had been since I'd last said it, "look after them, up there in heaven. And look after our friends inside. Give them the strength to hold on."

It was short and sweet. I could have said plenty more, but I became more and more conscious of the fact that the snow was piling up around us, and I knew I didn't have time for a long speech. I could have asked for strength for ourselves. I wanted to ask for the rescue to be nice and quick. I wanted to ask for the courage to try and explain what had happened to the family and relatives, who we would meet later. But I said nothing. I did not want to trigger any more of an emotional upset than we were already in.

"Amen," John said, which I deeply appreciated. I knew he was not religious, much in the same boat as me. He wanted to run back inside, and not think about the bodies in the snow. But he had stayed, aware that we could not walk off and leave our friends there.

"Amen," Mulder repeated. I noticed that he was holding Scully's hand. She was looking off in to the hills, and I realised with a thud that she must have known one of the agents lying in front of us. I knew them too, of course. But knowing their faces and names was very different from knowing them as friends. I still had a small amount of ability for blocking it out. It made her ability to be the strong one so much more impressive, and I felt guilty for not taking that role myself.

John started to head back inside, and I followed him. A blizzard was approaching, and we could not afford to be caught out in it.

*

Ironically, John and I were the only ones awake. It seemed odd when only a few hours ago we had been the most exhausted ones in the group. Now everyone was asleep, exhausted from the week and from the crash. John and I had volunteered to the be the ones to stay awake, waiting for the rescue, and keeping an eye on the unconscious agents. Their condition had not improved, and John and I spent most of our time in the entrance to the plane, staring out in to the snow, talking.

"Where the hell are they?" John asked, scanning the snow for the hundredth time.

"They'll be here," I said, rubbing my arms to keep the circulation going in the cold. "They're probably just having trouble getting up here, that's all. They might not be able to use a helicopter. It might be a ground rescue, and in this snow, they could be delayed."

John nodded. "What if they don't get here in time?"

I looked over my shoulder at the unconscious agents on the floor and was lost for words. If help didn't arrive in time, they would die. Then we would move them out in to the snow, and add them on to the row of bodies...

"It's just the weather," I repeated, trying to convince myself. "They'll be here soon."

There was a long pause. I could tell he wasn't convinced, but all we could do was be optimistic. I continued to rub my arms, gazing out in to the darkness, hoping for a sign of a light coming toward us, telling us that rescue would be on the way.

"Are you cold?" he asked, looking at me rubbing my arms.

"A little," I said, automatically. Of course I was cold. We were in the mountains, surrounded by snow, how could I not be?

"Here, maybe I can help," he said, moving toward me.

That woke me up. I dropped my arms, holding his eyes. He didn't look away, and stepped up to me, placing a hand on each my shoulders, softly rubbing and massaging, and then working his way slowly down my arms.

I was about to raise my arms to his waist when there was a cough and the slow thumps of someone trying to walk toward us. I reluctantly dropped my arms, John doing the same, and we turned to see Holly, one hand against he wall, trying to help herself walk.

I silently hurried toward her, careful not to wake all those who were asleep.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, horrified that she was walking on her injured leg. "Did you need anything? We can help."

She still looked pale, and when I put a steadying arm around her waist, she leaned in to me a little too easily.

"Thanks, but I have to empty my bladder, and I don't think you can really help with that, Monica." She even managed an apologetic smile.

I paused, not knowing what to do. I didn't want her to walk on her leg, but I didn't see that we had a choice.

John stepped forward and put himself between Holly and the wall. "Ok, but at least let us help."

She accepted, and leant on us both as we helped her out in to the snow. We sank in to it.

"Just go around the back of the plane," John said. "Scully will murder us if you walk too far."

Holly looked unsure, but I completely understood. Not only did she have to do with it without any facilities, but she was doing it with a sore leg and in front of everyone else. I didn't want to even consider the other problem she had. I felt so sorry for her, and was extremely anxious to help.

"We won't look," I said, taking a quick moment to rub her back. "Just call when you're ready to come back."

It was a long, slow walk around to the back of the plane, and when there was enough privacy, and without the bodies in sight, we withdrew our physical support and left her alone.

We returned to our post, looking out for the rescue. I was starting to get cold, and hoping that someone else would wake soon to take over. I liked being alone with John, and was wondering what would've happened if Holly hadn't interrupted, but I could not feel full happiness. Not with dead agents lying in the snow only a feet away. The thought was ridiculous. I quickly cut the thought off. I had no right to fantasise about my relationship with my partner when I had numerous fellow dead agents lying beside me, and more unconscious inside.

"I don't know how they're managing to sleep," John said, looking around at our friends. We had moved a fair bit of the loose chairs and other junk out in to the snow to make more room, but they were still squashed. The storm had come before we had had time to finish the job. The hole to the entrance to the plane had been partially blocked, but we had left a hole so that John and I could watch both inside and outside of the plane.

That brought the cold in, but they had found a way of defending against it. Brad was wearing an unbelievable amount of clothes, and it looked warm, but he obviously thought warmth was worth the restricted movement. We all knew about Mulder and Scully's relationship, and they did not hesitate to use the body warmth to their advantage. I felt sorry for Dana. She was acting brave, but I knew that it she was very upset underneath. I only needed to see the way Mulder lightly kissed her on the cheek, and the gentle way he hugged her to know that I was not wrong about her knowing one of the agents. Kim had been lying next to Holly, but slept on, not even aware that her friend was no longer beside her. And Skinner was propped up against the wall, sleeping restlessly. Seeing them all, I knew it had been a good idea to watch for the rescue in turns. We did not know how long they would be, and it would be less help to everyone if we were all too exhausted and emotional to help.

Minutes later, Holly called for us. "Agent Reyes!"

By the time we struggled back over to the snow and around the plane, not even pausing to look at the dead bodies, she had already moved a few feet, and looked very embarrassed. She did not meet our eyes as we moved to help her and remained silent all the way back to the plane. We helped her inside, and back to her spot on the floor beside Kim. She closed her eyes, still silent and still without looking at us.

I was not concerned. She was going through a lot, and her silence did not seem out of the ordinary. In fact, I would have been even more surprised if she had been talkative. At the time, it all made complete sense.

*

I wasn't sure how much time had passed before Kim and Skinner came to take over. It could have been half an hour, or it could have been four or five. Whatever it was, the time dragged. John and I stared out at the snow, listening to every little noise, and thinking that every tiny bit of light just might be the help coming. I began to see things, lights that weren't. I was either that hopeful that my mind was working too hard, or that tired that I was having trouble focusing.

Either way, it came as a relief when Kim suddenly woke and stretched, accidentally stretching in to Skinner behind her, and poking him in the chest, he was soon woken as well. She spent a few minutes trying to remember where she was, and then it all came flooding back and she offered to take over, horrified that we had been left to do the job for so long.

John and I went over to take their spots on the floor, and finally get the sleep that we had been craving for so long. I lay down next to Holly, and John was behind me. When I closed my eyes, I understood John's wondering of how the others were managing to sleep. When my eyes were closed, all I could see was the long row of bodies in the snow. I could see the unconscious agents next to me. I could see the long, quiet stretches of snow, vacant of any rescue. But most of all, I could see the shocked looks of the agents who knew they were about to die, the expression permanently frozen on to their face. I was exhausted, but there was no way I was going to sleep.

*

I was lying awake, contemplating the cracks in the paintwork on the roof when Kim and Skinner suddenly burst out in a panic.

"Sir," Kim said in an urgent whisper, "I don't think he's breathing."

They both spun around and ran over to the agent, forgetting that they were meant to be silent. They sounded like a herd of elephants. Not that it mattered, as the agent's life was far more important than our sleep, but when John grumpily opened his eyes, a tiny part of me was amused all the same.

I was already on my feet by that stage, and leapt over John to the agent. I did the chest compressions, and Kim began mouth-to-mouth. It was a long, gruelling process. I kept my eyes on his chest, hoping for a sign of breathing, for any sign of life. It seemed hopeless, but we went on, telling ourselves that it would be only the next push of my hands, or the next breath Kim gave, that would bring him back to life.

I was getting sore arms, but there was no way I was going to stop. Kim looked tired, too, but there was a strong determination in her eyes. Each time she came up for air she became more frantic, gasping for breath, and at the same time trying to hold back the tears, and her fear that we were going to lose yet another agent.

We continued until we heard a small voice. "Stop."

It was Scully, and we ignored her. We knew CPR could bring people back for ages after death, and as long as there was a chance, we could not give up.

Scully came around to me and put her hands firmly on my wrists. I tried to throw her off, but she only squeezed even harder.

"What are you doing?" I shouted.

"Monica, you have to stop. He has major head and chest injuries. You can't bring him back, and even if you could there's no hope." She sighed and looked down at his face, and at Kim, who still hadn't stopped breathing for him. "Even if there was a chance, it would be cruel to take it. He'd have extensive brain damage and..." she paused. "This is what's best."

"That's fine," I said angrily, "as long as you're the one to tell his family that we gave up on him." I glared at her, and she loosened her grip and sat back. As Kim and I went on, our movements becoming weak and clumsy, she watched from the side, looking torn between her medical beliefs and her understanding of our feelings.

No one else tried to stop us. Skinner was watching, with the same expression he had worn when we were carrying out the bodies. John and Mulder were watching, with the most distressed looks I had seen them wear for a very long time, and if I wasn't busy trying to bring the agent back to life, I might have been surprised to see that Brad was at the entrance and looking out in to the snow, not paying any attention to what we were doing.

We kept going for a long time. Slowly everyone's interest in watching started to fade, and with it so did my hope that the agent would come back. I did not want to stop. As long as there was hope, we could not stop. But as I became weaker, Scully's statement started to find room in my mind, and horrified though I was at giving up, I was also having a mental image of him in a hospital, as a vegetable.

Kim slowly stopped. The tears which had been sitting peacefully in her eyes had long since started to flow down her face, until she was crying too much to continue. She continued with the erratic CPR, losing her counting until her breaths were completely random, and then with a choke of tears, suddenly pulled away and sat back, breathing heavily.

"I... we can't..." she paused while she drew in a very shaky breath, her eyes still frantically looking around at all of us, searching the watching faces. Then she lost all strength she had left and dissolved in to tears. "Oh my God... this isn't right..."

Skinner was closest, and he slowly pulled her toward him, letting her cry in to his shoulder. He was only barely holding on to his emotions himself.

There was no use in continuing without her, and I too sat back. I put both my hands firmly on the floor and leant over, closing my eyes and trying to find the strength not to cry. I wanted to break down like Kim. I wanted to scream and cry and completely lose all physical control. But instead, for some reason, I settled for refusing to look at anyone.

John put a gentle hand to my back. "Monica, are you all right?"

I couldn't answer. I didn't look at him. I wanted to turn and let him hold me and support me, but I could not do it. Everyone was upset, and I did not want to break down. Someone had to be the strong one. We had to think logically.

"Monica?" he asked, leaning in a little closer.

"Brad, is there any sign of the rescue?" I said, keeping my voice level and emotionless.

"No," Brad said, not turning to look at me, just as I hadn't turned to look at him. "They must be held back by the weather."

I nodded and when I finally had found some control, I looked back up and sighed. "We'd better take him outside, then."

No one moved to help me. They were all still stunned over what had happened. Except for John, who was looking at me with a lot of concern. Either way, it was just under a minute before anyone moved to help. I had put myself behind his head, and hooked my hands under his armpits and started to try and drag him towards the entrance.

Slowly, Mulder came forward and took one of the man's arms, and then John moved forward to help, and when we reached the entrance, Scully came forward as well.

As a team, Mulder, John, Dana and I dragged the agent out in to the snow, and added him on to the end of the line.

Now there were only eight of us left alive, and two left unconscious. But as I put the body down and let go of him, I scanned the trees and sky with a lot less confidence and hope. Even if we were rescued right at that moment, I would not be happy. I felt drained. All I could hope for was that the rescue came before there was any more trouble.

*

We all crowded back in to the plane. Kim had stopped crying and was now leaning against the wall. She was staring in to space, not focusing, but she looked much better. Skinner was next to her, also looking a lot calmer. Brad had not moved from his post as lookout, and the rest of us slowly found spots around the plane. It was interesting, because no one wanted to sleep any more. We sat down, ready for another few long hours of waiting, watching the unconscious agents, praying that they would wake up.

Suddenly, I noticed that Holly was no longer around. "Where's Holly?"

Everyone started looking around, worried.

"She didn't come past here," Brad said, and then started scanning the ground outside anyway.

I revolved on the spot. She wasn't in the main part of the plane, and that meant that she must have been in the pilot's cabin. Unless she had disappeared in to thin air, of course, but I reminded myself that this wasn't an X-File.

The door to the pilot's cabin was closed, and I approached it, knocking softly on the door. "Holly, are you in there?"

There was no reply, and I glanced back at John. He came and stood next to me. "Holly, are you all right?"

Still there was no reply. Something sank in my stomach. I knocked again. "Holly, I'm coming in, ok?"

Not hearing a reply, I carefully turned the handle and pushed the door open a little, peeking around the corner. I had not seen the cabin yet, but it was a mess. Most of the glass was smashed, and a lot of the equipment was broken, too. Now I understood exactly why we had not been able to send a distress call.

Holly was sitting in one of the chairs, staring at the snow through the gap where the windows had been, and not at all concerned that the temperature was enough to freeze her. I pulled my coat tighter around myself, and glanced back at John. He hung back, nodding to me that the situation was best left to me.

I shut the door and approached the chair, trying to stop shivering.

"Holly?" I said softly, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She turned to look at me, which was at least a sign that she knew I was there. But she did not reply, and turned back to stare back at the snow in a daze.

I quickly surveyed the situation. She was not shivering. She did not appear to be affected at all by the cold. Either she did not notice it, or was so numbed that she could no longer feel it. I glanced down at her leg. It was still bandaged, and there did not appear to be any new blood that I could see. That was a good sign. One less thing to worry about. I wanted to move her to the warm part of the plane, to raise her temperature, but she did not appear to be in any state to want to move, and so I set about trying to comfort her, for whatever problem was bothering her.

And it wasn't that easy. The day had gone so fast, that there was a choice of a hundred events that could have triggered such an emotional shutdown.

I knelt by her chair, trying to avoid all the broken glass on the floor. I put one hand on her arm and one on her knee. "What's wrong?"

She moved her mouth, but struggled to find any words.

I decided to start at the beginning. "How's your leg?"

"Agent Scully says I should be fine," she said, sounding like a tape recorder reciting a fact. It wasn't very helpful. I knew what Scully thought because I had been there at the time. What worried me was what Holly thought and felt, not what Scully's professional opinion was.

"It must hurt like hell," I said, with an effort to sound casual. "That happened to me, out here, I'd probably still be screaming." I gave her a small smile, and was very relieved when she gave me a tiny one in return.

"It hurts less now. I'm fine, thanks to everyone's help."

I accepted that, and gave her arm a small squeeze. "That's good."

I watched as her eyes left me and drifted out in to the snow again, returning to her dazed state. If her physical condition was not the problem, then it must have been everything else. It did not seem as though she was going to open up without an invitation, so I set out to draw her out. But doing that involved guessing what part of our situation was bothering her.

I took a guess. "It's hard to believe, isn't it? That in this modern world, our plane could crash. I thought that only happened in the movies."

"I wish it did," she muttered.

"I know," I whispered. "It shouldn't have happened. And when we get out, people are going to say that it was good that not everyone died." I paused, trying to find words for how I felt. "It doesn't make sense."

She sighed and looked back to me, and I knew that I had hit the problem. It was guilt. Guilt that we had survived, that we had been the lucky ones to be up the front of the plane. It was all too random. We could search for reasons of why we survived when the others didn't, only to find that there aren't any. It was all chance. We weren't any better than those that had died. We did not deserve life more. We had just been lucky enough to get the front seats.

"A part of me thinks that I'd rather be out there in the snow." She frowned, as if considering the idea. "It'd be easier. Maybe we're not lucky at all."

There was nothing I could say. I agreed whole heartedly.

"We'll get interviewed, I suppose. The families will want to talk with us. They'll want to know about the last moments before they died." Tears appeared in her eyes. "And I just don't know... what the hell I'm supposed to say. I mean, what do we say, Monica? We can tell them what they want to hear, that it was very quick, and they weren't in very much pain. But it's all lies. Who's going to want to hear the truth? Are Tom Colton's family going to want to hear about how he wanted us to kill him? About how he was screaming, and in so much pain? And those faces... they're not going to want to hear about those faces, about how shocked and horrified everyone was. I don't know what we can say to them."

"You're not alone, Holly," I said. "We'll all work that out together, when the time comes."

She shook her head, quickly dismissing the idea. Then she started to cry. "I wish I was dead, Monica."

I stared at her, and in a flash, I got up from the floor and perched on the edge of the chair. I slid an arm around her shoulders and one around her waist, and brought her in to cry on my shoulder.

We sat together, holding each other for five to ten minutes. I tried to be strong for her and reassure her that we would be fine, but I found it hard when I believed a lot of what she had said. I tried not to cry, but I could not stop a few tears from escaping.

There was a soft knock at the door and Dana's voice sounded through. "Is everything ok?"

Holly started to pull away, Dana's voice pulling her back out of her thoughts and in to the real world.

"We're fine," she called, before I could even open my mouth.

We both got up from the chair, ready to go back to the main part of the plane and join the others. But before we reached the door, I took Holly's arm and turned her around.

"Look, let's not worry about any of that right now. For now, we just all have to stick together until help comes, and then after we'll all work it out together."

She nodded and smiled, and she looked much happier than she had when I'd first entered. I only wished I could convince myself as much as I had her.

When we rejoined the group things started to go slowly again. The two unconscious agents were still unconscious, Holly was fine, and now we had nothing to do but wait. Mulder and Scully had taken over from Brad as the ones to stay awake and keep a lookout for the rescue. They were sitting in the doorway, talking quietly and holding each other to defend against the cold.

Holly sat down with Kim and Skinner, and I moved over the other side to sit on a pile of clothes with John. He looked awful. When I sat down, he reached over and took my hand gently in his own. He did not do it because he thought I was upset, or because he was upset himself, just because he was feeling what everyone else was. We were feeling the guilt of survival, and the stress of the wait for a rescue. It was for mutual comfort, a sign that we were still together.

We did not want to sleep, but we were both so exhausted that we had no choice. We lay down next to each other, and let go of each others hands, but instead we were facing each other, and he put a hand on my waist, and I put one on his and we closed our eyes with the comfort of knowing that we were not alone in our thoughts.

*

"Monica! Agent Reyes, wake up!"

Scully was shaking my shoulder. I groggily opened my eyes and saw her kneeling over me with an expression of urgency that was either due to excitement or disaster. I hoped it was excitement. I wanted it to be rescue, not another death.

I sat up quickly, glancing at the unconscious agents. They looked fine. No one was crowding around them in a panic.

"What is it?" I asked.

I waited as she reached over me and shook John awake as well. We let go of each other and waited for the explanation.

"Holly," Scully said, getting to her feet. "She's gone."

For a second I thought she meant dead, but then I saw the way Skinner, Kim, Mulder and Brad were all putting one extra clothes and I realised that she meant missing.

We jumped to our feet. I did not bother to put on any extra clothes. I had never taken any of them off. I was ready to go.

"What do you mean 'gone'? How can she have disappeared?" John shouted, hurrying to the door, me behind him.

"I thought you were awake, watching for the rescue? Didn't you try to stop her?" I said, turning to Mulder and Scully.

Scully dropped her eyes and rushed past, outside, leading the search. I took that to mean that they had not stopped her. It was as if they had not even seen her go. They must have fallen asleep. I could not blame them, because I knew how tired they felt. I also knew by the look on their faces exactly how guilty they were feeling. But that did not stop me from being angry with them, even though I tried to control it.

Brad was turning around in the snow, looking for any sign of what direction she had gone in. The sky was black. We could hardly see. There was also an icy wind that was almost slicing in to us. I kept running my hands over my arms as I walked, trying to keep the circulation going.

"She's crazy!" exclaimed Brad suddenly. He turned to Scully. "Are you sure she was all right? Why would anyone walk out in to this?"

Scully did not answer, and was white with panic.

"Maybe she just went to nature's bathroom," Kim suggested. "She'll probably be back in a few minutes."

"She's been gone for longer than that," Mulder said, with almost the same level of panic as Scully. I could tell they were feeling guilty, and were praying that there was a simple explanation for Holly's disappearance. If there was one, I was not seeing it.

"Tracks," John said, pointing to the snow. "Do those tracks belong to anyone here? Did anyone go off in that direction during the night?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Then that's our path," I said, and before any of them could reply I had rushed past and started following the tracks. I heard Scully, John and Mulder all quickly follow, while Skinner, Kim and Brad hesitated. I don't know why, but they caught up a few minutes later.

"She can't have gone far," Scully said, going halfway between a walk and a run. The snow made it hard. We wanted to sprint, but it was too dangerous and too much of a struggle. "Her leg must still hurt. She wouldn't have made it very far without help."

"What's she doing, anyway?" said John. "You don't think she plans on walking out of here, do you?"

"If she did, the sensible thing to do would have been to wait for sunrise," I said. "And she wouldn't have slipped away without telling us if that's what her plan was."

"Then what's she doing?" John asked.

I did not answer. I had an idea what I thought she was doing. There was only one explanation of why she would have gone off in to the night without telling us. I thought back to her emotional breakdown a few hours before, and her statement that she wished she was dead. But she couldn't have... I thought that had been an expression of her feelings. I had not thought she was seriously considering the idea.

Or maybe she hadn't. Maybe she had not cheered up like I thought she had. Maybe she wanted some time alone, and had simply wandered off without thinking. But that did not fit, either. If she wanted time alone, she could have sat outside. In this weather, you do not go hike across a mountain in freezing temperatures just to think.

Kim, Skinner and Brad caught up to us, and Skinner pushed a pair of sunglasses in to my hands. I had no idea where they got them from, but I was too worried about Holly to consider it.

"Sun will rise soon," Skinner said. "These are for when it does."

I remembered something about snow blindness, and I understood why.

Kim started to push past John and I to the front of the group. We were approaching the end of some rocks, and then the tracks would head downhill and over a long flat snow-covered plain. And the tracks did not seem to stop. They stretched on and on in to the distance. I started to wonder how long Mulder and Scully had been asleep to allow Holly to get so far unnoticed.

No one spoke for a further five minutes, until we reached the end of the rocks and we looked out over the next plain, and the long trails that stretched over it.

We all stopped, gazing out at the tracks. Holly had got very far, and I could guess that her mental state was not too stable at the time. In the temperatures we were feeling, I felt my chest tighten with dread. We had been walking for ten minutes at a fast pace. Holly would have only been going a quarter of our speed, and that meant at least 40 minutes of walking for her. And still the tracks stretched over the horizon.

I looked around at the others. John had stopped beside me and was now looking away from the tracks. He, too, knew what it meant. Scully seemed to have gone an even whiter shade of white. Mulder looked much the same. In fact, the only one of us who didn't seem to know was Kim. She walked straight on, continuing to follow the tracks in the snow.

"What are you waiting for?" she said, giving us a puzzled look as she went past.

We watched her go for a few seconds. We did not know for sure, but we could guess what she was going to find. In these temperatures, with Holly's physical weakness, long exposure and since none of us were sure how long she had been gone, it was probable that she would have stopped and collapsed. Whether she was still breathing as she lay in the snow, none of us wanted to think about.

Mulder took a step forward and began to walk down the hill. "She can't go alone."

Scully nodded and followed, and the rest of us automatically joined them a little later. Maybe Holly was fine, but in my heart, I did not believe it. I had a feeling, and it was not a good one. But just for once in my life, I was praying that I would be one hundred percent, completely wrong.

*

We stumbled through the snow for another twenty minutes. I had put the sunglasses on, as a precaution. I had my mind on so many other things that sunrise could sneak up without me noticing, so I put them on while I still remembered. It made it a little hard to see in the low light, but my mind was focused on other things.

Suddenly Kim stopped, and pointed. "Oh my God..." And just as suddenly as she stopped, she broke in to a run. We followed her. It wasn't until we were much closer, and approaching the edge of the next hill until I saw what she was seeing. Up ahead, Holly was lying in the snow, as a small patch of black clothing against the white.

Kim was the first to reach her. She threw herself down in to the snow beside Holly and put her hands on her shoulders, trying to turn her over on to her back.

"Holly! Holly, are you ok?"

We arrived, but all stood in a circle around them. None of us were sure what to do.

Kim continued to push and pull, and finally managed to partially turn Holly over. Her chest and face were now exposed. Just as we had feared, Holly was dead. She was staring up in to the sky. Like the other bodies lying back up at the plane, her expression was not blank. It was one of heartbreaking sadness. There was a silence. As Kim realised that Holly was dead, she drew her hands away, afraid to touch her dead friend. She gasped and threw herself backwards, scrambling to get away from the body.

John and I were behind her, and as if we were sharing our thoughts, we both moved forward at exactly the same time and knelt either side of her.

She was still crawling back, but I put my arms around her, holding her firmly against me. She continued to stare at the body and was struggling to find her breath.

"Kim!" John said, running his hand down her hair, while I tried to hold her still. "Kim, calm down. Calm down, Kim. It's okay."

But that was a mistake. It only made her more hysterical as she turned on him. "Okay? How the hell is it okay? Don't you see her?" She glared at him with such fury that John withdrew his arms, lowered his eyes, and after a second, moved away completely.

I chose not to risk using words. There was nothing I could say. All I could do was try to stop her moving. I held her with the tightest grip that I dared use, and after a minute of wriggling she gave up and went limp in my arms. She did not tear her eyes away from Holly. She was whimpering, making noises as though she wanted to cry, but was still too shocked to find the tears to do so. I rocked her in my arms, and made shushing noises in her ear.

While I held Kim, John had managed to make himself useful and had covered Holly with one of his jackets, so that Kim could no longer stare at the expression on her friend's face. It was only after he'd done this that Kim started to calm down.

Brad had moved away, and was surveying the surrounding terrain. I found it hard to believe that he could actually find that interesting. It was more likely that he could not stand the sight of Holly dead, or of Kim being so upset. Scully was looking at the body with a shocked face. Mulder, too, seemed incapable of movement. It was Skinner who moved to comfort her; he had an arm around Scully's shoulders.

It was at least five minutes before Kim had calmed down enough for us to consider our next move. She went quiet, had long stopped struggling against me, but seemed to have completely shut down. She was staring in to space, not focusing on anything.

"Come on," I said, "Let's get up. It's cold."

She did not move, and I looked to the others for help. She was half on top of me, and I would need help pulling her up. John moved forward to help. He had more confidence now that she had lost all her anger.

He took an arm and lifted her up a little. I stood up with her, and we both held her up.

She was weaker than I thought. Her own feet did not even want to support her, but after some encouraging words from both John and I, she managed to support a part of her weight. John and I still supported her a little.

"Are we going to take her back?" Mulder asked, coming out of his shock and looking down at Holly's body beneath the coat.

"Yes," I said, purely because I knew Kim would lose control if we didn't.

No one raised any protests. Brad came back from elsewhere and mechanically lifted Holly. He lifted her in to his arms, refusing the help of anyone else, and started to lead us back to the plane.

*

I would have preferred that the body be carried behind us, so that Kim did not have to see Holly being brought back. But Brad had not thought of it, and was so much in his own world that I could not risk stopping him. He was a fair bit ahead of us, and the fact that he was carrying a body didn't even slow him down. At one stage, Skinner and Mulder offered to help, but he refused and ended up carrying her all the way back by himself.

Although we had allowed Kim to see Holly being carried back, I still wanted to prevent her from seeing Holly being added to the line of the dead. There was no good it would do. So nodding at John behind her back, we steered her straight toward the plane, leaving Brad to take care of the body, unseen by Kim.

It was a relief to get back in to the plane. It was freezing cold out in the exposed areas, and the plane offered some shelter. While we were walking back, the sun had begun to rise, but it did not offer any warmth. The snow was still all we felt.

Kim still had not said a word, and we settled her down against one of the walls of the plane.

I knelt by her side, squeezing her shoulder. "Are you cold?"

She did not answer. She was still too numbed by the shock to find any words. I felt her forehead and that confirmed my suspicions. She was cold, and it wouldn't help her state of mind. I wanted to put some more clothes around her, or a blanket over her, but there wasn't anything useful around, and I sure didn't want to leave her side.

"Thank God they're alive," said John suddenly, looking down at the unconscious agents.

We had left them unattended. It was such a stupid mistake. We had been so worried about Holly that we had lost all sense and ran off without leaving someone to look after them. In our rush to save Holly, we had further risked the lives of the dying agents. And what if the rescue had came during our absence? We should have been more prepared. We should have left someone behind. Scully would have been the logical choice, as the doctor in the group. But she had been so panic-stricken that she had not noticed Holly slip away that she would not have been in condition to do the job anyway. Even if we had thought of it she would have refused. And did it really make any difference if someone else had supervised? There was little we could do for them, besides keeping them warm. And if something happened, then it would be another case of wondering even if we should risk trying to resuscitate them.

Brad cut the thought off as he strolled in, with an air of coming back from a family picnic. His manner was frighteningly casual. He walked in, found a corner away from everyone else and sat down, drawing his knees up to his chest and put his head against the wall, prepared for a sleep.

"Someone had better keep their eyes open for the rescue," he said, and then closed his eyes, obviously not considering that he himself could do the job.

"I'll do it," I said. I was going to be awake because of Kim anyway.

"No," Scully said, moving to sit beside us near the door with Mulder. "We'll do it."

I shared a doubtful look with John. They had been awake for quite a while already and it would be best if we all got equal amounts of rest. And not only that, but after their failure at noticing Holly's absence, I was uncomfortable about them doing the job anyway.

"You sleep," I said. "John and I will take care of it."

"No," she said, very firmly. "I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do it right."

Now it made sense. She wanted to show that they were still capable of doing the job properly, that they could be relied upon. She wanted to make up for her mistake, and though nothing could ever make it up for the loss of Holly, she wanted to feel like she was doing something to help. She was being torn apart by guilt.

Not waiting for an answer, they both started staring out in to the snow, with ten times the determination and concentration they had shown hours before. It was slightly alarming, but it did have one good outcome - it comforted Kim to know that they weren't going to make the same mistake again.

It comforted Kim, but I could tell that John and I were only more worried. We appreciated that they knew they had made a mistake, but they were our friends, and I was worried about how much they blamed themselves. It was too deep. Too powerful. And the worst part was, it wasn't completely true.

"Don't blame yourself," I said, turning away from Kim to face Scully and Mulder. "It wasn't all your fault."

Dana immediately opened her mouth to argue, but John cut her off.

"There were seven of us here," he said. "We all share the blame equally. You weren't the only ones who didn't notice she'd gone."

"You weren't meant to notice," Mulder said. He was staring out in to the snow, not being able to bring himself to look at us. "It was your turn to sleep."

"We shouldn't have been sleeping," I said. "We all knew she was upset by the accident. It wasn't that you did not notice her leave, but that we... or I, didn't see how hurt she was." My memory brought up a line that she had said. "You know what she said to me? She said 'I wish I was dead'. It's my fault, not yours. If I had my brain switched on I would have realised that it was serious."

Scully let out a small, disbelieving laugh. "Monica, out of all of us here, you are the one who is least at fault. We all knew what she was feeling, but you were the only one who made any effort to help her. The rest of us just sat here, believing some irrational hope that she would be fine until we were rescued. I mean... we have thirteen dead bodies out there, eleven of which died in the crash. It was stupidity to think that we could postpone the affects of that. We should have all made an effort, Monica, not just you."

I was numbed by her statement. I tried to find some words, but there weren't any. We agreed that we should have all talked to her more. In fact, we should have all talked to each other more. But I rejected everything about that I was exempt from blame. She had told me what she was thinking. She could not have put it plainer. But I only hugged her. I should have talked to her, told her that we all felt the same.

I looked around at all their faces. Mulder was looking depressed, and was looking out in to the snow in deep thought. Scully had grown quiet, but was still looking at me, waiting for a reaction. John, too, looked at me with an expression of sadness.

"She's right, Monica," he said. "When Holly disappeared in to that pilot's cabin, we shouldn't have made you go in alone. We should've all talked about it."

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter. The fact is, she told me what she was thinking, and I didn't do enough."

John left Kim's side and came around to me, putting an arm around my shoulders. Skinner went to sit beside Kim, not wanting to leave her alone. I let myself enjoy John's comfort, and leant in to him.

"You say you didn't do enough, but we didn't do anything at all," Scully said softly, letting the tears appear in her eyes.

This time it was Brad who spoke. He opened in his eyes and glared over at us. "If I said that it was all your faults, and you were all equally incompetent, would you shut up and let me sleep?"

Kim came out of her silence and spun around to glare at Brad and started shouting at him at the top of her voice. "How can you say that? How the hell can you be so insensitive? Doesn't it mean anything to you? Don't you realise what we've done? It doesn't bother you that she was so upset that she walked off on an injured leg in to the middle of nowhere to die? What kind of insensitive wart are you?"

I knew Brad well enough to know that he would take that. And sure enough, he sat up and glared back at her just as fiercely. "You're all making it in to something so much bigger than it is. She was upset and Agent Reyes tried to help, but she refused it. It was her choice to walk out there. She would have known the consequences. And ask yourself... don't you find it odd that no one was awake when she left? How long do you think she waited for the opportunity? You're all acting like she was two years old. She knew what she was doing. It was suicide. It was her choice, and there was nothing any of us could have done."

For a second, Kim looked as though she was going to leap forward and slap him across the face. I wouldn't have blamed her if she did. But then she got control of herself and looked away from him, perhaps realising that there was no point. We were stuck in the plane together, and the wait for the rescue would only be more painful if we fought. Skinner took her hand and squeezed it, but he did not look at Brad either. John and I were the only ones who did. We glared at him.

I looked back to Scully and Mulder. They both were slowly regaining their colour, but they still looked very ill. The temperature outside did not seem to be rising, and so I was beginning to get worried about them. It would only be a matter of time before their emotional upset took a physical toll. The rescue could come in minutes, or it could be up to another twenty-four hours. But whatever it was, I wasn't going to sit back and risk it. And with the tension in our shelter rising, I wanted some time to myself, and this was the perfect excuse.

"I'm going to get some more supplies," I said, and got to my feet, heading out in the snow.

"I'll help," said John behind me, and followed me out.

Together, we walked out of the front half of the plane, and over to the next section which housed our baggage. It wasn't a beautiful morning. It was cloudy, with a cold breeze. I was wearing two layers of clothes, but I still felt like I was wearing only a t-  
shirt. We stumbled through the snow, our energy gone from the hike to find Holly, and climbed in to the gap from where the plane split to get inside.

"What are we here for?" John asked. I smiled. He had wanted an excuse to get away, just like me.

"Mulder, Scully and Kim are looking pale. I thought we'd get some more clothes for them." I turned my attention to the pile of bags, strewn across the floor from when the men had searched through them before. I recognised Scully's bag as the dark brown one, and I grabbed it, pulling it toward me and zipping it open.

John shrugged and went for Mulder's, opening it and searching through for the warmest clothes that were left. I went through Dana's, but she did not have anything suitable left. There was underwear, a few pairs of black pants, and a blouse or two, but nothing that would help her with the temperatures outside. The only warm clothes she had were those she was already wearing. The woman certainly travelled light.

So I put it aside and dug through the rubble for my own bag. I was the opposite. I packed for all weather. It was something that had brought a few jokes from John, but now, it had finally become worthwhile.

I dug out a spare black coat. It would be a little big for her, but it would keep her warm. It was funny that she was a doctor but had the least sense for warmth among us all. She was so upset over Holly that she was not thinking logically. I threw the jacket over my shoulder while I put my bag away and found Kim's. On the scale of packed clothing, she was halfway between Dana and I. She obviously hadn't needed all the professional clothes that we had, but she still had packed enough for the stay. But she had packed for comfort, not looks, and consequently had a few warm jumpers that I seized.

"Monica," said John suddenly, "Do you realise how long it's been?"

I was holding a pile of Kim's clothing, trying to decide which would be best for her. "How long it's been since what?"

"How long we've been here. You know, without a rescue."

I looked up. He was leaning against a wall that somehow had escaped damage, but he was looking at me with worry in his eyes. Every few seconds he glanced nervously down at the coat in his hands, and then out to the snow, searching for the planes and people that still hadn't arrived.

"It might be more dangerous than we thought," I said. It was an automatic response. "We don't know exactly where we are. We might be very hard to get to up here. We've just got to give them time."

"But even if they couldn't manage a land rescue, wouldn't you think that they would have contacted us somehow, from the air? They'd know what the weather's like up here. They would've dropped supplies for us while we wait, and maybe a radio or something that would allow us to communicate with them."

"It'd take time to organise that," I said. "We just have to be patient."

"That's my point," he said. "We've been here close to twenty-four hours already. How patient do they expect us to be?"

I sank to the floor, sitting on someone's bag without even realising it. It was soft, though, so at least I didn't break anything. John came and sat next to me, also not realising what we were sitting on.

"John, they have to be doing something. For now, we just wait. They know we're here."

"Do they?" he asked. His voice was more urgent now, like he was approaching the point.

"Of course they do. This is the modern world. They would've been tracking us from the moment we had problems."

He didn't reply.

I studied him, and pondered the thought. What if they didn't know? Did that even make sense? It was true that they might have dropped supplies. We had not seen even one single plane since our crash. But it could easily be explained. They might have attempted a land rescue, and found out that they couldn't make it. They might be waiting for good weather. There might be a storm coming that they were waiting to pass first. Or they might be thinking we were dead. What were the odds of anyone surviving the accident? But they were sure to check anyway. They would look for survivors as soon as possible, however doubtful they would be about it. And that was what scared me, the fact that there was some sense in what John was saying.

"It just doesn't make sense to me," he said. "It doesn't make sense that we haven't seen anyone. Not a single sign since we've been up here. We're FBI agents, Monica. We're trained to figure out puzzles like this. And the only thing that makes sense is that they don't know at all."

"A plane full of FBI agents will be missed, John. They would know we're missing by now and they'll be looking."

"Granted," he said. "But have you looked around? These mountains go on forever. How long do you think it'll take for them to find us? If at all?"

"They'll know the flight route we were planning to take. They'll fly along that line. It won't take long."

"But if that was the case, they would have found us by now, right?" He looked at me anxiously. I had no idea what to say. He could be right, but the thought was too terrifying that I wanted him to be wrong. He had to be wrong. It was easier for him to be wrong, than for us to consider what it might mean for us to be alone in the mountains with no training.

"Look, let's just hold on a little longer," I said, trying to draw up confidence. "It'll be some simple error somewhere. They'll find us, and when they do we'll be able to ask them what took so long, and then hit them for it. But for now, we just wait, ok? It's too early to assume that they don't know. It's only twenty-four hours. We should wait at least two or three days before concluding that."

He shrugged and looked down at his shoes. "Okay then. I'll wait as long as it's a possibility. But let's not pretend, ok?"

I settled a hand on his knee, and he held it. "We'll be fine." As soon as I said it, a lump formed in my throat. I had said the same thing to Holly.

"As long as we stick together, we will be," he said. He squeezed my hand and then got to his feet. "And that means we'd better get these clothes to the others before they freeze."

I nodded and got to my feet, and we walked back to our friends. It was good to have a few minutes alone with John, but now he had given me another thing to worry about. And when I had to be strong for our friends, I only hoped that I could keep my concern from showing.

*

I put John's thought out of my mind as much as I could. We walked back in to the plane, and I straight away knelt in front of Scully. She was gazing out in to the snow, which wasn't surprising. But as soon as I put my jacket in her lap she woke up and started to argue in her normal Dana Scully fashion.

"I'm fine, Monica," she said, with a tone like she was telling off a child for doing something wrong.

"I know," I said. "But I want to make sure you stay that way, and since your jacket isn't exactly wearable at the moment..." I held mine out for her and she reluctantly took it, glancing over at her own jacket, covered with Holly's blood.

"Thanks," she said.

I went and gave Kim the extra clothes I brought for her, and then I felt the need to duck outside. We had been in the wild for twenty-  
four hours, and things had been so hectic that I hadn't thought about it until now, when my bladder was threatening to explode.

The moment I decided to leave lead to the birth of one of the most amazing things about our stay in the mountains. It was a strange consequence of Holly's death, but the fact that none of us thought it was strange really showed how bad we were all feeling about it.

I announced that I would be right back, and went out in to the snow, intending to make my way to behind the plane, which had become our unofficial area for doing it. But as soon as I took my first step in the snow, I heard someone speak behind me.

"I need some fresh air, I think." I looked over my shoulder, and saw Dana making her way to her feet and following me out. She was convincing. It was an Oscar performance. Anyone who wasn't thinking would have actually thought it was a coincidence. She did not explain it to me. We didn't exchange any words. But she didn't have to. I knew why she was doing it, and I didn't mind. In her place, I probably would be doing the same thing. I looked down at the snow as I made my way through it, and Dana moved off near the second half of the plane. She couldn't get a view of me from there, but it allowed her to watch me for most of the way there.

It felt like I was in school again, when the teachers used to tell us to take a friend to the bathroom with us. Back then, it had been for safety reasons, but I suppose it was for the same reasons now. We hadn't expected Holly to walk off like she did. There was no way I would have ever thought or believed that she would have done it. But she did. Dana wasn't watching me because she was expecting me to lose control, just because she cared. And even if she thought the chances were only one in a billion, she was still more comfortable making sure. I didn't mind because I understood her feelings about losing Holly. We were both feeling the same guilt. She didn't get in the way. She didn't watch me so obviously or openly that I was uncomfortable. She simply watched me disappear from behind the plane, and then waited for me to reappear. And when we returned to the plane, none of the others even questioned it. They had seen through Scully's lie, of course, but they reacted to it exactly the same as me. Under the circumstances, it was a completely logical and normal thing to do.

*

THE SECOND NIGHT

The remainder of the day went very slow. The seven of us sat in the plane, no one saying very much. The little talk there was was about our rescue. John and I hadn't shared our thoughts on the subject of them not knowing, but as time went on we continued to glance at each other more frequently, sharing the worry.

Kim had calmed down, even though she was still very upset. She spent most of the afternoon sitting with Skinner's arm around her. At one stage, she even started to talk about it all. She talked about Holly, and the friendship the two had shared. We let her talk. It broke the silence, and it helped her. It helped us, too. We didn't know Holly as well as Kim, and so we couldn't contribute as much, but it encouraged her all the same. She went through every little detail, as though determined not to forget anything. When she finished, she lapsed back in to her silence, staring at the wall and wondering aloud when the rescue would come, because Holly's body would be too cold out in the snow.

Brad had been silent in the corner for most of the afternoon. I didn't know why. It seemed like he was going between sleeping and sulking. I don't know why. It was probably guilt, like the rest of us. I guessed he felt guilt over our situation, and not being able to prevent the deaths of so many agents.

He did have one useful moment, though. Just before sunset, he announced that he was hungry and went on a mission to find food and water. It was extraordinary that we hadn't done anything about it sooner. I think we had all thought about food, but it had seemed like such an insignificant thing. It would have been selfish to announce that I was having hunger pains when there were so many dead agents out in the snow, two unconscious inside, and a few friends of mine having emotional breakdowns. It seemed best to wait.

Anyway, Brad did manage to find a few useful things. We didn't have any food with us, but we had a few bottles of water. They were nearly empty from our two days already, but he found a lot of spare parts lying around the place, and constructed a complicated system for melting snow, which then filtered down in to the bottles, filling them up with water. It was a boring job, because it meant that someone had to sit there with the bottle and look after the whole process, but it was something that Brad enjoyed doing. He liked being productive, and for a while on the mountain, he took it on as his job. We couldn't do anything about the food, but that wasn't our biggest problem. Yet. Water would be enough for now.

John was very helpful. He had noticed the sad feeling in the air and made a courageous effort to change it. He was twisting a bottle of water around in his fingers and he suddenly put it down and sighed.

"You know, when we get out of here, I'm not going to ever see snow again. I've had enough of it. I'm going to get myself one of those open fires, and I'm going to sit in front of it all night."

I smiled at the thought of John in front of a warm fire. "Can I join you?"

"Sure," he said. "We'll lie there until we dehydrate from the heat. I'm sick of this cold."

"John," said Scully, "a few hours of that and you'd be dreaming of snow like this."

John screwed up his nose, trying to picture it. "Maybe. But I'd like the chance to get sick of it. I want to thaw myself out."

Dana yawned. "I guess you have a point. At the moment, what I want most is warmth. A nice warm blanket." She was hugging herself in my jacket. Mulder took advantage of the opportunity to slip an arm around her shoulders and pull her to lean against him.

"I'd like a pack of cards," said Mulder. "Something to pass the time while we wait for these idiots to rescue us."

"Radio for me," said Skinner. "That way I could personally tell them to get off their butts and hurry up."

"I'd like..." I paused, searching for something that I wanted. The first thing that came to mind was to have the others alive with us. But that would be bringing the conversation down in to that depressing territory again, so I searched for something normal. "I'd like some coffee. I can't believe it's been so long since I last had one."

"Yeah," said John dully, "That must be a record for you."

I smiled back at him, and lightly nudged him with my shoulder.

We all turned to Kim. She looked around at all of us and then took a deep breath. I could tell she was feeling the temptation to say that she wanted Holly back, but I was praying that she would have the strength to hold on. I didn't care what she said, as long as it wasn't depressing. It was important for all of us to have a few minutes to act normal, and think about insignificant things that we were missing.

"I'd like..." and she paused, with her mouth half open. Suddenly she closed it again, deciding that whatever she was going to say wasn't right. Then she took a slow breath and started again. "I want a smoke."

We all looked at her.

"I didn't know you smoked..." said Skinner. He looked very confused, trying to figure how his secretary was a smoker without him ever noticing.

Kim solved that one. "I don't. I just feel like one."

I wasn't sure how serious she was, but I was hoping she didn't figure out that there were a few packets of cigarettes among the luggage of the dead.

That only left Brad to say what he wanted. He didn't hesitate. "I'd like a beer."

It was worse than Kim, but nowhere near as unexpected. I knew Brad. The wait would be killing him inside. He wasn't a man to sit around and wait for someone else to come to his rescue. He looked at the bottle of water in his hand with disgust, hating it for not being the alcohol that could drain him of all sense and of the weight of our wait.

John and Dana were both resisting the urge to glare and roll their eyes at him, but I saw it anyway. It was shock for them that an Assistant Director of the FBI was wishing for alcohol because he was impatient. John had already had a bad opinion of Brad, and it hadn't done anything to improve the situation between them.

I don't know whether it was a coincidence or not, but John suddenly announced that he had to go outside and got to his feet, to struggle out in the cold and darkness to pee.

We all watched him go. As soon as John disappeared out of sight around the plane, Mulder pulled away from Scully. "I'll be right back."

None of us were surprised. I knew Mulder was feeling just as much guilt as Scully was, even though he had been a little better at hiding it. And if it hadn't been Mulder to follow, it would have been someone else. Probably me or Skinner. When John returned, Mulder came back with an extra pair of socks and jacket from his luggage, pretending that that had been his mission all along. We weren't fooled, but we understood.

*  
DAY THREE

We lost another agent in the morning. John and I were on the watch for the rescue, and the others were all making an attempt at sleep. Some successfully, others not. Kim fell asleep fast, exhausted from the previous day's events. So did Mulder. Scully and Skinner were awake most of the night, and Brad was pretending that he was asleep, but I knew better.

It was a good thing Dana was awake, or we might have never known. She was gazing over at the agents, lost in thought, when suddenly she jerked up in to a sitting position and stared at them more intently.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, keeping my voice low so as not to wake any of the sleepers.

She kept her eyes on the older agent, on his chest. I don't know how she knew that something was about to go wrong, because it all looked normal to me.

She crawled away from Mulder and over to the agent and she put a few fingers to his neck, checking his pulse.

Then she looked back across to me and John. "He's going."

We made our way over to her. I sat on the other side of him and put a hand on his shoulder. I wasn't going to let anyone die alone. It wouldn't have made much difference to him, being unconscious, but I felt better doing it.

"What's his name?" asked John.

"Chris," said Dana.

John looked down at him. I knew what he was thinking. We were about to lose another agent. When would it stop?

"Is there anything we can do?" I asked. "There must be a way... to somehow keep him alive until they get here."

Scully shook her head and reached down to hold Chris' hand. "He has internal injuries. I don't think there's anything we can do."

We didn't find any words after that. We all wanted to say something. We all knew it wasn't fair. The only good thing was that he was unconscious, and wouldn't be feeling any pain. It would have been worse if he was lying there screaming at us. I wouldn't like to see the look in his eyes when he realised he was going to die. I had seen that look in Colton's eyes, and it was something that I never wanted to witness again. I was glad that he was unconscious. We sat with him, all holding him, and it wasn't long before his breathing started becoming noticeably irregular and shallow.

Unlike last time, none of us cried. By now, we had seen enough of death to have developed an ability to deal with it. John had tears in his eyes, but I knew he wouldn't cry. We had exhausted ourselves over the deaths of those right after the crash, and then our long CPR to the dying agent later on, and then Holly. It was becoming a painful routine. It made us all sad, but we did not let each other cry. Maybe it was easier that we had been expecting it. We knew the unconscious agents did not have a good chance unless the rescue came fast. We knew all along it had been a possibility. Holly's death was tearing us apart because it was sudden and preventable. But the agent in our arms wasn't preventable. We had done what very little we could, and we had had a few days to prepare ourselves for the worst.

So we didn't cry, and when he stopped breathing, and Dana confirmed him dead, we didn't waste time in taking him outside. I took the feet, Dana and John at the other end, and we lifted him and carried him out.

My suspicions about Brad were confirmed when I glanced at him. He had his eyes open, and was watching us with a sad expression. It was then that I realised how bad he was hurting. Up until then, he seemed unaffected by everything that was happening. But that, combined with his desire for alcohol was beginning to show me in to his real state of mind.

I tried to meet his eyes, so that I could give him some kind of indication that I understood how he was feeling, but he looked away and closed his eyes, refusing to look at me.

We put the body down in the snow and quickly turned back to go inside. It was snowing outside, and I was too cold to spend time saying any goodbyes. We hurried back in to the shelter of the plane and settled ourselves back down. John and I continued to gaze out in the falling snow. He took my hand, and in his grip I felt the tension within him. I looked in to his eyes and saw the same thing. With each passing minute, he was becoming more sure that they did not know where we were.

I squeezed his hand. "They'll come."

He didn't answer. He only glanced at the last unconscious agent across the floor and then tightened his grip on my hand.

*  
THE THIRD NIGHT

By late afternoon everyone was growing restless. Sitting in the plane all day and night, waiting, was eating away at us. It was our third night approaching, and we were beginning to run out of excuses of why they were taking so long to rescue us.

We hadn't talked about it until then. We had all been wanting to believe that there was a simple error. But we knew now that something had gone very wrong.

It started when Kim suddenly jumped to her feet, giving a sigh of frustration at the lack of planes or help. "I'm going for a walk. Anyone want to come?"

We all wanted to go, but someone had to stay with the unconscious agent. Brad volunteered, and the rest of us followed Kim outside.

It had stopped snowing around midday, and this meant that the snow was soft, and I sank in to it up to my waist.

"Crap," said John. He'd just hit a deep part and was looking down at himself. "I don't think this is going to work."

"We need some snow shoes," said Mulder, who was taking Dana's hand and pulling her back to safety of the hard snow around the plane.

"Yeah," said John, "Well you run down and buy some, and I'll wait here."

I smiled and held out a hand to John, helping him back to steady ground.

"Why don't we make some?" said Skinner.

We all looked around at him. It was a nice thought, but I had no idea how. "With what?"

Skinner shrugged and his eyes fell on the scrap pieces of seats and cushions that were partially sticking out of the snow. We had pulled them out after the plane first crashed, to give us room inside.

Mulder smiled and hurried over to the first one he saw. He knelt down and started brushing off the snow which had accumulated on top. When it was exposed, he nodded back up at Skinner. "You're not as stupid as you look, Skinman."

Skinner ignored him. Maybe he was used to comments like that from Mulder. "I'll find us some rope or string."

They worked for close to an hour, until we had several pairs of snow shoes. They were roughly cut, but they were effective. The cushions were the shoes, and the string helped to keep them on. The job finished, we started to go on the walk with Kim.

There were mountains all around us. I had no idea where Kim wanted to go. "Did you have somewhere specific in mind?"

"No, just to take a look around. If we can recognise something about the area then we might be able to figure out where we are."

We went in to the opposite direction to where we had found Holly. We knew what was down there, so there was no point in hiking it again. Instead, Kim led us up the side of a hill near where our plane had crashed. It was a gradual climb, but it was exhausting. We climbed and climbed, but Kim didn't stop. I didn't want to be the one to say something, but thankfully, I didn't have to.

"You know," said Mulder, stopping to catch his breath. "You said walk, not mountain climb."

"The higher we go, the better view we'll get," said Kim. But she smiled at the looks on our faces and quickly turned to continue.

John turned to look at me, shaking his head. "Monica, if she ever asks us on a walk again, do me a favour and make sure I say no, ok?"

I smiled at him and took a step in the direction of Kim. She was already far ahead of us. It was exhausting, but I could see how worthwhile it would be. There were no trees this high in the mountains. We had crashed very high up, and if we only climbed a bit higher, we would have an uninterrupted view of our surroundings. "Not tired, are you?"

John frowned at me. I grinned. I'd caught him off guard.

"Come on, Mulder," called Scully, putting her hands on her hips. She was halfway between us and Kim and was giving us a look of fake confusion. "If you don't mind, I'd like to get back before it gets dark."

Mulder gave her a look, and Dana waited for him, struggling to hold back a smile.

John and I followed them. It was tiring, but it would be worthwhile, and I was impressed by Kim's attitude. She seemed to be dealing with Holly's death much better than she had the day before. I think she thought that it was better to do something about our situation instead of sit around and wait. She was full of determination again. Of course, she had to be, or she wouldn't have the guts to drag John and Mulder all the way up a mountain peak.

*

We collapsed when we got to the top. We spent a few minutes wishing that we had brought some water with us and resting in the snow before we turned our thoughts to the issue of why we'd climbed. Mulder ate some snow, but Scully warned him not to have very much of it, and that left us to lie around until we regained our strength. Even Kim was tired, although she was looking around as she caught her breath, not thinking that it was a waste of time.

John was still grumpy. He looked around at the endless mountains in every direction and then looked back at Kim. "We're in the middle of nowhere."

"No we're not," said Kim.

"How do you figure that?"

"Because we weren't on the plane long before we crashed. We can't be too far in," she said, but as she looked out at the horizon, she wasn't too sure.

Dana had thought of another problem. "They have a lot of area to search. I mean, look out there! What do you think the odds are of them finding us? Especially when the plane is white. How are they going to see it when we're surrounded by snow?"

We hadn't thought of that, but understandably, since we hadn't seen or heard of anyone. "We haven't even seen any planes fly over. If they're looking, they're not searching our area."

I didn't realise what I'd said until Scully suddenly turned and gave me a thoughtful look. "What do you mean 'if'?"

I looked to John, but he was no help. Maybe the time had come to confess.

"They should have known our flight route," I said. "They should be able to pinpoint where we were when we went down. If they knew about the crash, we should've been found by now. Or at least seen something."

Kim spun around. A lot of the strength seemed to evaporate from her face. "But you're FBI agents! Don't you think they'd notice? Don't you think you'll be missed?"

"Kim's right," said Skinner. "Even if they didn't know that we went down, they would have figured it out. They knew we were planning to fly there, and they would have realised we never made it to Vancouver. We still should have seen something of the search by now. Something must have gone wrong."

John spoke up. "What if we're not where we should be? Wouldn't that explain why we haven't seen anything?"

"That's impossible," said Mulder.

"What about the storm?" said John. "Maybe they went off course for a while. We might be nowhere near where they think we are. They're probably miles off searching elsewhere."

No one knew what to say. After a few minutes, Kim decided to fill the silence. "But even if that were true, they'll still find us. When they don't find us out wherever they think we are, they'll start looking up here, won't they? We just have to be patient."

"It could be days," said Skinner. "Or weeks. Look out there! As Scully said, that's a lot of country to search. How long before they give up? They'll already think we died in the crash."

"They'd look anyway, just in case," said Scully. "But even so, they would have given up by now. They won't expect us to survive the freezing temperatures up here. Or the hunger. I mean, even if they considered the extreme possibility that we survived, they'll think we'll die of other causes before they get to us."

"Thanks, Scully. I feel really reassured now," muttered Mulder.

"Sorry, Mulder, but it's the truth."

"So let's assume that's all true. Where does that leave us?" I asked. "What do you want to do?"

"We can't hike out," said Mulder. "Not as long as that agent is unconscious down in the plane. We can't leave him."

"We could if we split up. A group could stay and look after him and another group could hike out to get help," said Skinner.

Scully shook her head. "Let's not hike anywhere until we're absolutely sure that it's necessary. That hike will take days, and I don't want anyone spending nights out there if they don't have to."

"So you want to wait?" asked John. "Just to make sure?"

Scully nodded.

Kim looked doubtfully at Scully. "And how long will that be? How long do we have to wait? Until we go insane? Until we starve?"

Scully held up a hand to stop her, which was a good thing, because I knew Kim was on the verge of saying 'until we end up like Holly'. "Let's just stay for a few more days. Then if we've still seen no sign of them, we consider other possibilities."

*

"You took your time," complained Brad when we returned a few hours later. "I was beginning to think you'd fallen off a cliff somewhere."

"We went further than we were planning to," I said, which was partially true. We hadn't been planning to hike up there. It was Kim's idea, but she had not informed us of her plan until we were halfway there.

He shrugged. I don't think he would have cared if we had fallen off a cliff.

"What's the hurry, anyway? We didn't miss anything, did we?" I asked. I walked past him and in to the plane. For once, I liked the thought of sitting and doing nothing. I was exhausted from the mountain climb, and now all I wanted to do was rest, and maybe sleep.

He spun around. Even with his ruffled clothes and tired eyes, he still looked like he had fallen back in to his role as AD. "You did, actually. While you were all out sightseeing I managed to find a radio among the luggage. Caught some interesting news reports."

"A radio?" repeated Mulder. He was halfway to sitting down and had been ignoring Brad when he suddenly stopped moving. Scully rolled her eyes at his hunched over stance and impatiently grabbed his arm and pulled him down.

"Yeah, a radio," Brad said. "Found it in one of the bags. Don't know why they brought it along, but it's useful."

I looked back to Brad. "Are you going to tell us what you heard?"

He hesitated. He was so proud of himself for finding it that he was enjoying holding the power of the news reports over us. He wanted to rub it in that he had been the only one who had thought of looking for a radio in the luggage.

I locked eyes with him, staring at him until he gave in. Then he sighed and sat down next to me.

"We're on the news about every half hour. But it's all the same story. They know we're gone, but they can't find us. Wherever they're looking, it's not around here. It's all chaos, of course. I think there's some who are worried."

I'd been expecting that part, but there was still some other details which I knew he was concealing. I could see it on his face.

Mulder had noticed that, too, and he got straight to the point. "They don't think we're alive, do they?"

Brad sighed and took a few seconds before responding. "They've called in a lot of experts. Some think there's no chance, and even the ones who do have hope think that two or three maximum could have survived, and with serious injuries. They keep reminding everyone that it's been three days now, and that even if someone did survive, the injuries together with the lack of food and freezing temperatures doesn't give them a good chance."

"I guess they weren't counting on us landing on the angle we did," said John. "It was luck that we hit here. Anywhere else and we wouldn't be sitting here right now."

"It was extraordinary that the front half was relatively undamaged," said Scully. "We should've been the first to go. We would've been if it hadn't been for the back scraping those rocks."

I looked down at the floor, my thoughts drifting to Holly. She had thought the same thing. It was only luck that we survived. There was no reason that we had survived when the others hadn't. If we had arranged ourselves differently, if we had taken different seats then we wouldn't be the ones having the discussion. It would have been other agents, who were instead lying out there in the snow, waiting for the rescue to come so we could give them a proper funeral.

"But they haven't given up yet, right?" asked Kim, looking hopefully at Brad. "Even if they think that, they must still be searching."

"Yeah, they're searching," replied Brad, but he lacked the positive tone that Kim had.

Brad was intelligent. He didn't need to have been on the mountains with us to work out that the chances of them finding us were small. If the plane was white, in white snow, it would be hard to see from the air, and it would be next to impossible if they were looking in the wrong area.

Kim looked around at us all. Everyone except herself was looking grim, and not holding much hope that we would be found. I didn't know exactly how long it would be before they gave up on us, but I knew they would become less enthusiastic with every hour that passed.

It was a strange reversal. Before it had been us reassuring Kim with the positive attitude, but now she was doing the same to us. She observed us all for a moment and then sat up straight and started talking. "You could at least try and be positive. Giving up is only going to kill us faster. And now we have a radio we know what they're doing, so we don't need to worry any more. We won't need to guess." She took the small radio from Brad and turned it over in her hands. "If we check quickly every hour, we should be able to keep up-to-date without draining the batteries. So all we have to do is listen for planes and keep ourselves warm, and we'll be out of here soon." She looked around at all of our faces and then added, "Just imagine their faces when they see that we're alive. Think of your friends and family. They'll be so relieved to see you alive. What would they say if they knew you were going to give up on them?"

I didn't look at her. All I could think of was the faces of the family who would be told that their son or daughter hadn't made it. My parents would be full of tears of happiness, but I agreed with what Holly had said. The thought of facing the relatives of the others was terrifying. At the moment, they would be holding on to hope, believing that maybe their son or daughter had survived, and when we returned, we would have to watch them collapse in to tears when they discovered the truth.

"Monica? Are you all right?"

That was Kim, confused by the fact that everyone was looking reassured except me. I had an 'I'm fine' on the tip of my tongue when I suddenly bit it back. They were in the same position, and maybe the thought had also crossed their minds. But on the other hand, I didn't want to bring the topic up when Kim had just made such an effort to cheer everyone up.

I was about to let the 'I'm fine' escape when John took my hesitation as a no. "Don't worry, Monica. I can't imagine your parents giving up on you. We'll be found soon and then we can go back home." He paused and then gave a small smile. "Unless you'd rather stay up here, of course. Most people pay a fortune for a camping trip like this."

"Yes, I'm sure we'll be rescued soon," I said, even though I didn't believe it. But John was still looking at me worriedly, and when I glanced up I saw that everyone else was, too. It looked like I was going to have to tell them. Brad would be the only one who would think it was ridiculous, and I could deal with him if I had to. "I just thought of something Holly said."

"What's that?" asked John.

"When I was talking to her, she was worried about having to talk to everyone else. You know, the families of those who... didn't make it." I raised my hand and pointed at the wall behind Mulder and Scully. On the other side of that wall was the row of the dead. "She was worried about what they'll say, that they'll ask us about the details of when it happened. I mean, I can understand what she meant. At the moment, they'll all be letting themselves hope that they made it. But we're the ones who are going to have to tell them that they didn't. Then they're going to ask questions about it."

"If they do, then we'll answer them," said John. "Don't worry about it."

"Do you think so?" I said, turning to face him. I knew he'd answered without really thinking about it. "Would you tell them the truth or what they want to hear? Can you imagine having to describe to their families about the last moments? All they're going to want to hear is that it was quick and painless. And for a few, that'll be true. But what about the others? Can you imagine sitting down with one of their families and having to explain that they were covered in blood and screaming in pain? Would you tell them that they asked us to kill them? And what about the agent we lost the other night? Would you tell his family that we gave up on the CPR because we thought he was better dead? What if we'd been wrong? He could've come back to life maybe only a few minutes later and been all right. And what about Holly? What on earth are we going to say about that?"

I'd talked them all in to silence. As I predicted, they were no longer happy. Maybe they had already thought about it, or maybe they hadn't, but either way I could tell they were seeing my point. And although I felt guilty about mentioning some of it, especially Holly, I felt better having said it. That had been the mistake we'd made with Holly. We hadn't brought it all out in to the open when we should have.

"We just tell the truth," said Brad. "They have a right to know, no matter how bad it is."

Scully sighed and shook her head. She had tears in her eyes. "That's all very well, but you weren't the one who was responsible for all that. I agree with Monica. It's easier said than done."

Brad just blankly stared at her. "What do you mean? It wasn't your fault. We did the best we could. It's the fault of the pilots and those who were flying at the time. That's why we're here."

"It's got nothing to do with the pilots!" said Scully loudly. "It's not the pilots fault that Holly wandered off, and it was my decision to let that agent die. I mean, I doubt the agent had a chance at survival. We can't be blamed for that. But you're right, Monica. I can't see how we can possibly explain what happened to Holly."

When I looked at Kim, I instantly regretted bringing the topic up. She was going pale and I could see some tears appearing. I'd obviously misjudged. I'd thought she was dealing with Holly's death well, but it turned out that her positive attitude that afternoon was only due to her strong efforts to cover up the pain she was feeling. And now we'd only made it worse. I can't believe I hadn't realised it earlier.

I pushed myself up from between John and Brad and went to sit next to her on one of the cushions from the wrecked seats of the plane. I put an arm around her shoulders. Dana came and sat on her other side, looking like she was feeling just as guilty as me for bringing the topic up.

"Sorry," she said.

A few tense moments passed while we waited for some kind of response from Kim. Then suddenly, she started drawing in deep breaths, trying to stop herself from crying. She looked back up at us and appeared like she was gaining control. I continued to rub her back. But just as suddenly as she had started crying, she suddenly spun out and lost all control.

"I'm just so... so damn pissed off!" she shouted. She threw my arm off, pushed Scully back, and struggled to her feet. Then she started pacing the floor, walking round and round between us, waving her arms furiously as she shouted. "I can't believe that we did that! I can't believe we stuffed up so fucking bad! What kind of friend am I to do that? How the hell could we just sit there and ignore her? I'm supposed to be her friend. I mean, I was! I've met her family before, you know, and now I'm going to have to go and tell them that I didn't even notice that she was upset, or that she walked out in the mountains and froze. I'm such an idiot! My God, why the hell was I asleep? I should have stayed awake! How the hell could we be so fucking stupid?"

Dana had got to her feet and crossed to stand next to her. "Kim," she said, but Kim spun around from next to Mulder's feet and pushed her away.

"And DON'T say that it wasn't my fault, that I'm imagining things or just being stupid. I'm the one who knew her best. I should've known. You're all standing there going on about how it was all your fault, but how can it be when you hardly knew her? When you only exchange a few words with her every year no one can blame you for not knowing what she was about to do. But I can! I'm the one who knew her. There's no excuse for me. And I am SO - FUCKING - STUPID!"

She had the radio Brad had found still in her hand and suddenly she threw it across the room, narrowly missing Skinner's head. Luckily he ducked out of the way just in time.

"Kim, calm down -" said Scully again, but again Kim cut her off, refusing to listen.

"Just FUCK OFF!" And then she spun around and ran outside in to the deep snow, the icy wind and the black night.

*

"What the hell just happened?" said John. He started to get to his feet, but I was a few steps ahead of him. I picked up a small packet of tissues I had dug out of my luggage earlier, slipped them in to my pocket and then hurried outside. I didn't wait for any of the others, I just hurried straight out in to the snow and the darkness to find her. I didn't have a plan. I just knew that she was angry enough that it could be a while before she stopped walking. Sitting around and waiting for her return wasn't an option.

I didn't have to look far. She was trampling her way through the snow in the exact same direction that Holly had taken. I don't think it was deliberate. The path was downhill, and it was natural to take the easy walk when she wasn't thinking clearly.

I hurried off to follow her, trying to catch up. The night was oddly still and silent, and I could her crying as she walked. I could also hear a few people behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Scully, Mulder, John and Skinner following. Brad was staying with the unconscious agent, which was good, because I doubt he would have been any help if he had come with us.

"Kim!" I called. "Kim, wait!"

She didn't turn around or give any indication that she had heard. She kept walking, hitting the edge of the flat and starting to go downhill.

"I got deja vu," said Mulder, as we all continued to stumble down the hill, very slowly catching up to her. It was amazing how energetic Kim was when she was angry.

"Yeah, and of the worst kind," added John.

"She'll be fine," said Scully.

I admired her confidence. Personally, even when we did catch up to her I had no idea of what we could do. She had to calm down eventually, but I was wondering how many miles we'd cover before that happened. In the meantime, I was hoping she was watching where she was walking. We didn't know the country very well, and it would be easy to slip on some rocks... or worse.

"Fine? What makes you think that?" asked Mulder. "Scully, does she look like she's fine to you?"

Scully glanced up at Kim, who we could still hear crying, but was still angry enough to have not slowed down at all. "Not really. But at least this way we know what she's thinking. I'd prefer to see her like this than to have her bottle up her emotions like she must have been doing this afternoon."

"She's never going to believe that it wasn't her fault," said Skinner. "What are we going to do?"

"Stop her to start with," said John. "She keeps going like she is and we won't have to worry about rescue 'cause we'll have hiked all the way to Peru before she stops."

"Don't worry, she can't keep this pace up for long. We'll catch her soon," I said.

"Can't wait," said John. "Good luck calming her down, Monica."

"Let's just be glad she's not armed," said Scully, which was an interesting positive spin on the situation.

*

It was just around fifteen minutes before anything happened. Then slowly, Kim's anger started to dissolve further in to tears and her walking became slow and clumsy. She did not stop completely, but she had slowed enough to allow us to finally catch up.

I deliberately didn't call out her name as we approached, because that might have set her off again. So instead we slowly came up around her. I approached her on her left, Skinner and Scully were on her right, and John and Mulder were following cautiously from behind.

She did not stop walking. We didn't try to stop her. For a few moments, we didn't even say anything. We just walked with her, and let her quietly cry. Then slowly, her pace became slower and slower until she finally stopped. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at the ground.

Kim sniffed. "Can't I get any peace out here?"

I knew that she didn't mean it angrily, and I was instantly relieved. If I thought about it, I could even say that there was a hint of a smile in there somewhere.

"Are you kidding?" joked Skinner. "Probably no one for a hundred miles in every direction. How much more peace do you want?"

She didn't smile or laugh, but she didn't say anything, which was still an improvement. At least she wasn't shouting at us.

John and Mulder came around so that we were all standing in a rough circle.

"I want to thank you, by the way," said Mulder, smiling. "For a second there I was worried you were gonna walk us up that mountain again."

I had trouble holding back a smile of my own with that one.

"If I did, would you have left me alone?" Kim mumbled, still not looking at us.

Mulder wasn't sure of how he should reply, so John stepped in. "Of course not. It's a beautiful night even down here. Imagine the view we'd get from up there."

Kim gave the slightest nod. "Yeah, I suppose it would be nice."

At least we'd finally got a response out of her, and now that she seemed comfortable with our presence, I knew we could carefully approach the subject of what had happened.

I slid my hand in to my pocket and pulled out the pack of tissues. I pulled a few out and slowly reached out, holding them out for her. She unfolded her arms and took them.

"Thanks," she said. She paused with them in her hands then said, "You must think I'm crazy."

"Not at all," I said. "Holly was your friend. It's not crazy for you to be upset."

"I think we understand how you feel, Kim," said Dana. "Unfortunately regret is a part of life. There's always things that you wish you did differently. I can't possibly tell you how much I regret that I wasn't awake at the time. I don't think I'm the only one who feels that way. But at the same time, I don't think there's anything that I, or we, can do about it. I wish I could go back and stop her from walking out. But the bottom line is I didn't."

"I know there's nothing I can do," said Kim. "I know that the wise thing to do would be to move on and make sure that it never happens again. But I don't care. I can't just move on from something like that. She was such a beautiful, caring person. I just can't believe..." she drifted off, letting some new tears fall down her face.

John nodded and looked sadly over at Kim. "When things like this happen, I don't think you move on, but you don't let it ruin you, either. It hurts, but with some good friends to help, you slowly learn to cope. You don't forget, but you learn to live with it." John's eyes slowly moved to mine as he spoke. I don't know if anyone else was aware of it, but I knew he was thinking of Luke's death, and of the beginnings of our friendship through my efforts to help.

"You're not alone with this, Kim," said Skinner.

Kim was still crying, but it wasn't hysterical crying like it was before. The tears were just slowly flowing down, and she stared at the tissues in her hands.

Then she raised her head and gave us a tiny smile. She wiped her eyes and then looked over her shoulder, as if realising for the first time how far we had walked. "Wow... how could you have followed me all the way down here?"

"It was your idea," said John, snapping back to his usual self. But he gave her a smile, reassuring her that he wasn't serious.

"I can't believe how far we've come," she said. Her eyes were searching all the surroundings, looking for something she could recognise. Then she gave us a guilty smile. "Sorry to drag you all the way down here."

Dana smiled at her. "It was actually a nice walk."

Kim's expression softened. "Well... thank you. I uh... I appreciate it. Thanks."

"We're your friends," said Skinner. "We're just glad you're all right."

She gave another guilty-looking smile and looked down.

I moved to stand in front of her. "Try not to look so guilty. It was our choice to follow you, you didn't force us."

This time she gave me a real smile and I moved forward and gave her a quick hug and a kiss. "We love you, Kim. Don't ever think you're alone."

"Thank you, Monica," she said, now smiling widely.

Skinner put an arm around her shoulders. "We'd better get back so we can get some sleep. If that rescue comes in the morning I want to be awake enough to see it."

We turned and started walking back up the hill. It was a much slower trip this time, but it was infinitely more relaxing. I actually had time to enjoy the scenery. It was an odd feeling, because I knew that Kim wasn't the only one who was feeling better. We had brought everything out in to the open, and it had not been a mistake. When I looked around at everyone, I could feel the emotions in the air. We had achieved something. Out of the tragedy of Holly's death had come some good, and it came in the form of a bond between us.

*  
DAY FOUR

In a way, the night reminded me of the time I spent with John after Luke's death. There were certainly some similarities. Kim, like John, was feeling a lot of guilt, guilt over the fact that she didn't think she had done enough. In Kim's case, it wasn't a family member she had lost, but she had been close enough to Holly that she was still devastated. With John, I had stayed with him all night. Not in a sexual way, but just as friends. We did the same with Kim. We set up a comfortable spot for her, with cushions spread out and then we covered her with a coat and an emergency blanket that Brad had found somewhere in the plane. Skinner stretched out next to her on one side, and I stayed on her other. We let her cry, because she needed to, but it wasn't long before she had run out of tears, and then she fell asleep.

In the morning, there was still no sign of the rescue, which left us wondering exactly how far off course we had flown before the crash. Brad had rescued the radio from where Kim had thrown it, and we were pleased to hear that it still worked. After we all woke, and we had shared around some of the bottled water, we turned our attention to it, and started searching for a news report.

It didn't take us long. The reception wasn't too good, and there were parts of it which were fuzzy, but we got the main bits. We all sat silent, all listening for every little detail.

"And now, we are in to the fourth day of the search for the missing plane of FBI agents that crashed in the Rockies. Despite the best efforts of US and Canadian search parties, authorities are still unable to track down the plane. The FBI's Deputy Director Alvin Kersh, however, remains confident that they will be found, and that there will be a full inquiry in to the causes of the accident. In the meantime, we pray to God that any survivors will be able to hold on and will soon be reunited with their friends and family." The news reader took a deep breath. "And now to the weather. Jim, I hear that it's not looking good for any survivors who might be stuck up there..."

"No, it isn't. I'm afraid we only have more bad news. A series of low pressure belts are resulting in the coldest winter we have seen for nearly a decade. Temperatures in the mountains are reaching some record lows, and unfortunately the forecast doesn't look too good, either, with meteorologists predicting blizzards and strong winds over the next couple of days. Let's hope that anyone up there has some warm blankets..."

The weatherman went on to talk about the highs and lows for each city, and we turned the radio off.

"I hate to sound pessimistic, but that doesn't sound too good," said John. He was sitting next to me, frowning at the radio.

"Hopefully they'll find us before those blizzards strike," I said. "They won't be able to find us in that kind of weather. They'll put the search on hold." I was also wondering whether we would be able to survive a blizzard. If the temperature dropped any further, things would be dangerous. They were already dangerous, but any lower and we would be looking death in the face.

A few people nodded that they agreed, but it was Brad's reaction that caught my eye. Annoying though Brad sometimes was, I was beginning to feel a little worried about him. I wasn't completely sure if leaving him alone for so much of the previous day had been such a good idea. First when we hiked up the mountain, and then when we had chased after Kim. He was becoming increasingly withdrawn. I made up my mind that I would make more of an effort, and from the deep and thoughtful look on his face, now seemed like a good time to start.

"Brad, what are you thinking?"

He looked up slowly, like he'd forgotten that he wasn't alone. He shrugged and then looked back down at the radio, avoiding my eyes. "If you're right, and they stop the search for the weather, what makes you think they'll resume it? I mean, assuming we survive the weather ourselves. They already think we're dead. A few days of blizzards and they'll give up completely."

"I doubt it," said Scully. "Even if they think there's no hope they'll continue until they find the plane."

Brad gave Scully a doubtful look. "This search must be costing millions. And how much country do they have to search? If we haven't even seen a plane then they must be miles away. How long do you think it will take for them to figure out where we are? In fact, why would they even bother searching up here? They have no reason to. They'll only keep looking in the area that we should have been at the time. And as each day passes, the cost is going to rise. There has to be a point where they think the chances of finding anyone are too slim to justify the expense."

"This is only the fourth day, Brad. That point is a long way off," I said.

"Really? To me, it seems like it'll be just like anything else. When you get a missing persons case, you look at all the clues and try and figure it out. Sometimes you find them, sometimes you don't. But if a few days pass and you're still no closer to finding them, then you start to wonder if there's anything more you can do. And sooner or later, you have to tell the family that you're giving up, because there's honestly nothing more you can do. It doesn't mean that there's no chance they're alive, just that the chances are so slim that the FBI can't justify the expense of having you there any longer."

"You're so damn cheerful, Follmer," said John. "But in case you haven't noticed, this isn't your everyday missing persons case. This is the disappearance of a whole task force. This is going to leave a gaping hole in the FBI that won't be forgotten too easily."

"So what are you planning to do? You going to sit though this blizzard and just hope that someone is going to realise that just maybe the pilot decided to fly off course for a bit of fun? And how would you do that? We've got a good supply of water, but it'll take more than that to keep you alive until that moment comes."

"Even if you're right, what are you planning to do? You stand a better chance in here than out there trying to hike out," said Mulder. "You go out there and you're dead."

"Maybe it's worth the risk. Stay in here and you die slower," replied Brad.

I don't know how we suddenly got on to the subject of our own deaths, but it wasn't something that I was interested in discussing. In my opinion, we would be fine as long as we stayed together. Food was an issue, but we could survive for quite a while on water. When the time came, we would think of something. But whatever we did, I was sure that giving up and being certain of death wasn't an option.

I was considering giving my opinion when we were interrupted by the death of the last unconscious agent. It was sad because he had survived for so long and now he was dying. We didn't spend much time dwelling on it. Scully said there was nothing we could do, and a group of us got up to take him outside, on to the end of the line. We said a quick goodbye and then went back inside.

Brad still hadn't given up. "Now you don't have an excuse any more. There's nothing keeping you here."

"Brad," I said, "giving up hope is not going to achieve anything."

"Why are you afraid of the truth, Monica?" He turned and looked around at all of us. "All of you. You sit there praying for a miracle. Read the signs. Accepting the truth is the only way you can possibly get out of here. Sitting there in your little world of denial might feel nice for a while, but sometime you're going to have to accept it, and starvation is your deadline. Get out of here while you still have a chance."

We all stood there, no one saying anything.

He shrugged. "Have it your way. I'm going to go pack."

He turned around and walked back outside, heading over to the other half of the plane to collect his things.

*

"Pack? Is he joking? He's actually going to leave?"

Kim watched Brad disappear with an expression of pure confusion. No one else looked as though they knew what had happened, either. They obviously didn't know Brad like I did.

"Well he can't do that," said Scully, starting to hurry after him. "We have to stop him."

"No, Dana," I said, and reached forward and took her arm. "Let me do it."

She seemed a little puzzled and after a minute I worked out that she didn't know about my relationship with Brad. She might have guessed that I knew him as a friend, through the way we called each other by our first names, but obviously she hadn't worked out exactly how close we had been, or how well I knew him.

She slowly drew back. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," I said, without hesitating. I put on my sunglasses and hurried out in to the morning to go after him. By the look of the sky, the weather report sounded pretty accurate. The clouds were so thick that I knew we were going to get snow sometime. I just hoped it wouldn't be any time soon.

I found him going through his bag, pulling out items that he thought unnecessary and packing in a few others, like a bottle of water and a few more clothes he had borrowed from the bags of dead agents.

I leaned against the wall, trying to ignore the cold. It was odd, because I thought I would get used to it, but I was still shivering every time I walked outside.

"You can't go, Brad."

He let out a small laugh. "You going to try and stop me?"

I grinned. "Of course not. I'm here to help you pack."

His head snapped up at me, but then he saw my smile and he realised I was kidding. I went and sat down next to his bag. "You can't be serious about this."

"I told you. I honestly don't think we have a choice. They're not going to find us, Monica. Best we can do is risk it out there while we still have the strength."

"You'll never make it, Brad. Not in this weather. And not alone."

"We're at the start of winter. It's only going to get colder. Best to go now."

"Brad, listen to yourself! This is crazy. You'll freeze to death out there. If you came up that mountain with us yesterday you'd know what I mean. Civilisation isn't just over the next hill. It's not a one day hike. There's mountains as far as you can see."

"I don't care," he said. "I'll figure something out. I'd prefer to take my chances out there than stay here. It's certain death, Monica. You're the one who's crazy."

"We can make it," I said. "If we block up the hole in the plane we should be able to keep warm enough to survive the blizzards. As for the rescue, we don't know for sure. We're only guessing based on a few news reports. There's nothing that says we're doomed."

"You have nothing to eat."

I hesitated. That was one problem, but it was still wiser to stay than to leave. "We have water. We'll be okay until the blizzards pass, and then we can reassess the situation. Anyway, you won't have any food either."

"I'll be out before that becomes a problem."

"You're weak already! Brad, when was the last time you climbed a mountain? Or even went hiking? This isn't a hike you can do on an empty stomach. All it will take will be a sudden change in the weather and you'll be stuck, out there, with no shelter. You can't just run off in to that. Situations like this, you have to think before you act. You're being irrational. Running away isn't going to solve your problems."

"Problems? The only problem I have is how to get out of here."

I crossed my arms and took a few moments to look at him. "You forget how well I know you." I paused. He didn't look up at me, and that was a sign that I was right. He wasn't fine. "I know you're not all right. None of us are. There's fifteen dead agents lying outside in the snow. Fifteen people that we all know. But running out in to a blizzard on a blind hope that you'll make it out isn't going to change that."

He was turning over a pair of black socks in his hands, thinking. After a minute or two he threw them down on top of the bag and turned around, sighing.

His voice dropped, as if he was terrified of what he was going to say. "I gotta get out of here. I can't stand seeing them any more. Those bodies, all lined up. I'm not going to hang around to watch anyone else die. Especially you. If I go now, and make it out, I can alert them to where we are, and then I'll bring them to rescue you."

I smiled sadly. "If you had my best interests at heart, you'd stay. I don't want to lose anyone else, either, Brad. And that includes you. I don't want to see you go off on a suicide mission. Nor does anyone else. Think of your parents, Brad. Everyone is going to be worried sick about you."

"Parents?" He laughed. "I haven't seen my parents in over two years, Monica. They moved back to London, and they never really bothered to keep in touch. My sister fell in love with some businessman from Ireland and she left to go and marry him. They got angry when I supported her. She threw away her whole career. Don't know if they'll ever get over it. I don't think they care, any more."

"There's a good reason not to go. You can't die without making up with them."

He shrugged. "Life's not a fairy tale, Monica. Leaving is a risk I'm willing to take."

I stood up and looked hard in to his eyes. "Then at least think it through. Give it another day or two. Let the blizzards pass, and then we'll think about it. We could leave as a group. We'll stand a much better chance that way."

He stopped and looked at me. "Do you really want me to stay?"

It was a question he shouldn't have needed to ask, and as answer, I reached forward and took his hand.

He looked down at our hands and thought for a long moment. Then he squeezed my hand and nodded.

"Maybe just a little longer. But as soon as this weather clears I'm out."

"Deal," I said and gave him a smile. In our situation, a lot could happen in twenty-four hours. I knew I couldn't talk him out of leaving, but asking him to wait a little longer was a start. In the meantime, I was going to pay closer attention to him. Brad was upset, but he also wasn't very good with dealing with his emotions, and I was the only friend he had up here.

I was surprised when he let go of my hand and gave me a hug, but I hugged him back, hoping that he knew I was there for him, and understood.

I pulled away a little, but Brad didn't let go. He let his hands fall to my waist and then he glanced in to my eyes and started to lean in.

Alarm bells went off. I was so shocked and surprised that it took me a second or two to move back. His lips had been about to touch mine, but then he stopped, realising that I wasn't going to be a willing participant. He dropped his hands from me and took a step back, looking at the floor.

I couldn't stand the silence, so I searched for something to say. "I love you, Brad, but our relationship isn't like that any more." He looked so depressed that I was starting to feel mountains of guilt piling up within me. "I'm sorry."

He gave a depressed shrug. "No, it's my fault. I should have known."

By the tone in his voice, I knew that he didn't believe what he had said, and was far away from understanding why I'd pulled away. I tried to meet his eyes, and give reassurance that I was still there for him, but he wouldn't look at me. I was going to reach for his hand when he took another step back and turned around back to his bag.

"Come on. You wanted to block up that hole."

*

Mulder had already made a start to blocking up the gap in the plane. He used anything he could find. Bags and chairs made up most of it. When Brad and I left the plane, I went to help Mulder, but Brad disappeared around the side of the plane to the row of bodies.

I kept an eye on him. He knelt beside one of the men and was scraping snow away from his face with a gentleness that showed me exactly how upset he was about the deaths. A part of me felt like going over to him, but I knew that it was important for him to have these few moments by himself. I didn't want to interrupt. So instead, I made sure to keep an eye on him, looking around every minute or two to see that he was still there.

"Is he all right?" asked John.

Things were definitely bad if John was concerned about Brad.

I hesitated. "I think he will be. I persuaded him to stay a little longer until the bad weather passes. He just needs to sort some things out."

Kim came up and stood next to us. "Monica, we caught another news report while you were over there. Maybe it won't be a good idea to tell him, but you should know that they've put the search on hold."

It was strange that the news didn't upset me. I'd been expecting that to happen, and we had prepared, so it wasn't a big deal. But she was right about not telling Brad.

Brad sat with the agent for over twenty minutes. I hoped that he was making progress and somehow working through his feelings, but I wasn't too sure. Either way, because I had rejected him, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be welcome if I went over there. So we worked on, blocking up holes and smashed windows and doing a general clean up. We didn't know how long the blizzard was going to last, so we were preparing for the worst. We moved out a lot more junk, leaving a lot more space inside and we spread out cushions on the floor. Kim disappeared over to the other half of the plane for a few minutes and came back with her arms full of coats that she had scrounged. She wanted to use them as blankets. I wasn't sure about using the clothes of our dead friends, but everyone else seemed comfortable with it, and I considered that if I died, I would want my friends to use anything of mine they could if it ensured their survival. It was easily justified.

With all our preparation, it turned out Dana was still miles ahead of all of us. I was wondering where she was when she appeared with a square, metal box in her hands.

John gave her a questioning look. "What's that for?"

Dana hesitated. She looked a little embarrassed. "Well, I doubt you'll want to go around the back of the plane when there's a blizzard out there. Might be a little uncomfortable."

Mulder stopped and took the box from her hands. "Smile, John. It's the modern chamber pot."

John turned back to Dana. "You've got to be kidding."

She shrugged and smiled. "Just in case."

"I can handle peeing in to the snow, but using that is crossing a line."

"What are you worried about?" asked Mulder. "It's easy for you. Scully, Kim and Monica are the ones who should be complaining."

John looked up at me, looking for my opinion.

"He does have a point," I looked at our new chamber pot in Mulder's hands. "It would have to be an absolute emergency."

"As much as the idea makes me cringe," said Kim, "it's probably better to have thought of it now than to realise later."

"I guess I see your point," said John, but he was still staring at the pot with fear.

Scully put her hand on his shoulder. "Relax, John. No worse than a bedpan in hospital."

I quickly glanced off at the rows of bodies again to check Brad was still there. I scanned up and down the whole row, but he was nowhere to be seen. In the two minutes we had spent looking at the chamber pot, he'd disappeared without me noticing.

"Brad's gone," I said.

John looked around, but he wasn't concerned. "Probably just relieving himself out there while he still can."

But true to our routine since Holly's death, Skinner moved past to go and wait for him. "I'll go check."

Skinner was level with the second last body on the row when the silence was broken by a gunshot.

*

I froze. A gunshot... but there was only one reason why Brad would fire...

Skinner started to run, but the snow was so deep that he was stumbling. I ran after him, yelling and screaming as I went.

"Brad! Brad, are you ok?"

In my head, I already knew the answer to the question, but I was still praying that I was wrong. Maybe it was a wild animal. Maybe it was self defence. But then he would have replied by now to reassure us that he was fine.

Skinner rounded the end of the plane and disappeared. When he didn't call out to us, I knew something was wrong. I continued to hurry, the others not far behind me, and after a few long seconds I turned the corner and saw Skinner, kneeling beside Brad on the ground.

"Brad?" I called. I wanted to hurry to Skinner's side, but I stopped halfway. Brad wasn't alive. The shot hadn't been in self defence, it had been in self pity. Now, his head was covered in blood, and the gun was lying under his dead hand on the snow.

"Brad!" I collapsed on to the snow beside Skinner and put my hands on Brad's shoulders.

I couldn't believe it. He had actually done it. But it didn't make sense. He had been recovering, not going... but may be he wasn't, and I had left him alone... I should have gone up to him... I should have been there...

"Monica." John was at my side. I could faintly feel his arm around me, but it made no difference. Brad was dead. He had killed himself. It had happened with Holly, and it had happened again. Something had gone wrong. I'd rejected him when he needed me most... why had I pulled away?

"Brad..." I could feel the tears forming in my eyes, but I didn't try to stop them. "My God, Brad, what the hell did you do?"

"Monica." John tried to pull me around to face him, but I didn't care. Brad had shot himself. I hadn't been there. I should have known...

"Monica, look at me."

The pleading tone in his voice finally broke through and I slowly turned to look at him. I searched his eyes for some kind of reason, or explanation... some kind of reassurance that it wasn't my fault, because I couldn't have possibly known...

John put his hands on my shoulders and looked in to my eyes. "He's gone..."

I'd worked that part out.

"...and it wasn't your fault. Don't blame yourself."

"But -"

"We couldn't have known. You were watching him the whole time. He knew we were there for him."

I could feel the tears start to fall down my face. Suddenly I had nothing to say. I went numb. All I could do was cry. I turned away from John to look back at Brad. Dana crossed to his other side and picked up his gun. Then she looked at me, worried. I ignored her. Why were they worried about me? Brad was dead. They should have been bothered by that.

I saw John and Dana exchange a look, but I didn't care. Brad had committed suicide.

"Come on," said John. He was pulling on my arm, trying to get me to stand up. I didn't move. I'd forgotten how to work my muscles. Even if I'd remembered, I wasn't interested in going anywhere.

Scully gave Brad's gun to Skinner, then came and took my other arm. "Can you stand?"

They were both lifting me up, and I didn't have much of a choice but to stand on my feet. I tried to fight the numbness, the shock, to find my voice. "What are we going to do?"

John gave a slight shrug. "There's a blizzard coming. We'd better take him back and then finish blocking up that hole."

I wasn't in a mood to argue. John put his arm around me and started to lead me back to the plane. The others stayed behind to take care of the body. I hoped this blizzard was going to be an extremely short one. I'd had two of my friends die already... and if we hadn't followed Kim we would have lost her, too. The isolation was killing us. We had to get out of here. Soon.

*

John led me to sit down on a cushion, and then he sat facing me, taking my hands in own. He was searching my eyes, like he was looking for me to give some kind of reaction, but all I could feel was numbness. Brad had killed himself, and the way I saw it, it could have been my fault. I wanted to cry, but I was too shocked. I didn't know how to do anything except stare. John understood. He held my hands, softly rubbing them, until the other four returned.

They all looked at me sympathetically, but Dana was the only one who said anything. The second she came in, she crossed to kneel beside me and John.

"I'm so sorry, Monica," she said, squeezing my shoulder. "I know he was your friend."

I was still turning the whole event over my head, searching for something that I missed, something that I should have done differently. The obvious thing was to have kissed him. Maybe that was just a simple comfort thing he had needed. Maybe I had misinterpreted, and it might not have meant anything more than friendship.

After another second, another thought hit. Brad's gun. We'd been here four days and he had still been wearing it. I hadn't even thought about it. I had pulled my own off on the first night when I went to sleep. It was still lying in the corner of the plane somewhere. If Brad hadn't had his gun, it might not have prevented him thinking about killing himself, but it would have bought us enough time to realise what he was thinking, and to stop him. With a gun, it was all so sudden, but if he hadn't had it, he would have been spending time looking for another method, and in that time we could have stopped him.

I sat up straight and looked at John and Dana. "The guns. We have to get rid of them." I looked up at Skinner and Mulder, too. Kim, as a secretary, wasn't armed. "Everyone has to give them up. We can put them away somewhere until the rescue."

While they caught up with what I was thinking, I got to my feet and went on a hunt for my own. I wasn't going to leave it lying around. I found it hidden underneath a few coats and then I turned back to the first person I saw, Skinner.

I held out my hand. "Come on. No risks. We should have done this ages ago."

He took off his gun, still in its holster, and handed it to me. "It's just dead weight at the moment, anyway."

Mulder didn't hesitate. He was finishing up the hole in the plane. He had left a tiny gap for us to still walk through, but he had a few objects lying aside that we could use to fill it up in a hurry. I took his gun and then I held out a hand toward John and Dana.

They didn't appear convinced that it was a good idea, but they pulled them out anyway, like they didn't want to argue with me. I took them and then I marched in to the pilot's cabin, dumping them safely in a corner on the floor.

"We leave them there until the rescue," I said. "We only touch them in an emergency, and only if everyone else knows about it first."

John and Dana exchanged another one of those worried looks. I don't know why. There was no one there that we couldn't trust, and I couldn't see any situation where we would need the guns. It was just a precaution.

Now that I had stood up, and was being active, I didn't feel like sitting back down. To sit back down was to let it all overwhelm me, and that wasn't something I wanted to happen. I didn't want to be useless. So I looked around at the floor of the plane. It had been cleaned up a lot. We had coats, cushions, the radio, our new chamber pot, and a few bottles ready to collect water in, but there was still more we could do. If I brought our bags over from the plane, we would have constant access to them. We hadn't brought them over earlier only because of a lack of space. Once everyone was lying down, there wasn't enough room to store everyone's bags as well. But now there were fewer people, we should be able to manage it.

"I'm going to bring over our bags," I said. I walked straight past John and Dana, who were still looking at me like I'd just said something insane instead of something completely logical, and I went straight out in to the snow.

The temperature was dropping. Even as I walked through the snow, I could feel my clothes getting wet. It had even soaked through my shoes, to numb my feet. Thank God the second half of the plane was only a very short walk. Any further and I would have frostbite.

I located my own bag, and then I went for Dana's. I glanced around at Kim's, but I already had enough to carry. I was about to hoist my bag over my shoulder when something in the corner caught my eye. Packets of cigarettes. I had quit nearly a year ago, but the idea was suddenly tempting. With all that had happened, I could really use one. Even Kim had said it, after Holly's death. She had said she felt like a smoke. Under the circumstances, I had a right. Sixteen were dead now. Sixteen all lined up carefully in the snow. And yet we were still stuck up a mountain, with a blizzard approaching and no sign of a rescue. No one could blame me for having a quick smoke.

Brad had tried to kiss me in the same spot I was standing, less than half an hour ago. I'd known he was upset, he wanted to leave, and I thought I'd stopped him. My God, if I'd only kissed him... then he would have known for sure that I cared, and maybe he wouldn't have done it. Or I should have pulled him away from the bodies when he was sitting there. Even if he had tried to push me away, even though I knew I wouldn't have been welcome, I should have done it anyway.

A smoke. Smoke. Maybe not a bad idea.

A small voice in the back of my mind was telling me it was wrong, but I ignored it. I reached for the pack, opened it, and pulled one out. Then I looked around me for a lighter. There had to be one around somewhere...

I was holding the smoke in my mouth, to free my hands for the search, when someone decided to interrupt.

"Monica, with all the trouble you went to when you quit, it would be crazy to pick it up again now."

Dana. And there was that word. Crazy.

In the split second in which I turned around, she had snatched away the packet, whipped the cigarette out of my mouth and thrown it up the opposite end of the plane.

"Doing that is only going to increase your problems, not get rid of them," she said.

Again, before I could say anything, she had taken hold of my arm and was pulling me down to sit on someone's bag... no idea whose... hopefully someone who wasn't going to complain.

"Monica, we know you're upset. You have every right to be. We know you were his friend. No one is going to criticise you if you let go for a bit. You're allowed to be upset."

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to talk about it, but that would involve explaining our past relationship to her. She only knew we were friends, she had no idea about the rest of it. John did, but I could see the look on his face if I told him Brad had tried to kiss me. And Skinner was an Assistant Director, if I admitted anything in front of him, it could lead to trouble, and that wasn't something I wanted to deal with at the moment.

Dana reached and pulled something out of her pocket. A photo. She handed it to me. "Mulder found this in Follmer's wallet."

She didn't need to say anything more. It was a photo of me and Brad, of him holding me. It didn't speak friendship, either. I never knew Brad had had kept that photo. I had no idea. It had been taken years ago, in New York, during the height of our relationship. In the photo, we were both smiling. How things changed. Now he was lying dead in the snow, having killed himself, and I was left to wonder if I'd ever get out, or be able to smile again.

So Dana knew. She put her hand on my knee. "Talk to me."

I found myself talking. "I told you before that I'd convinced Brad not to leave. It took a while, but he finally agreed. I knew he was feeling a bit depressed, so I tried to tell him I was there for him. I mean, I hugged him, he hugged me back, it was no big deal."

Dana nodded. "But something happened, right?"

I hesitated. I was still trying to make sense of it. "He tried to kiss me. I pulled back. I think he was hurt that I'd rejected him. That's when he left and walked over to the bodies. I know he was feeling depressed before that... but I just can't help thinking, that maybe..." I drifted off and sighed.

"You think you might have triggered it."

"Maybe, yeah."

The surprising thing was, she didn't seem surprised at all. In the last five minutes Dana had found out that I had been in a relationship with Brad Follmer, and that he had tried to kiss me before his death, and she was looking at me as though she had expected it all along.

She thought about it for a moment for responding, and for that I was grateful. "I doubt it. I think he was thinking about it long before you chased after him today. In fact, I think he might have even thought about it when we were up the mountain with Kim. It was probably being left alone that did it. I don't think it's all our fault, though. After all, he volunteered. He wanted to stay, and none of us are mind readers, we couldn't have known how he was feeling."

"We still had warning, though. We knew today how he felt."

"I think he probably already had his mind made up by then. He wasn't stupid, Monica. He would have been fully aware of the consequences of that hike he was planning. He would have known the chances of getting out right now are less than one in a thousand. He just wanted to get away. He just couldn't handle things here. Running away from it was the only way he could think of dealing with it. He preferred the possibility of dying to staying here. He even told us that."

"But then I convinced him to stay. Or at least I thought I did."

Dana gave me a sad smile. "He stayed for you. He couldn't say no to you. But he wasn't convinced by anything you said. He still wanted to go, he still wanted to get away, he just couldn't say no to you asking him to stay."

"But even if he was determined, there must have been something I could have done. If I'd kissed him, maybe he would have realised that I was there for him. He would have known that he could lean on me, and maybe we could have talked the whole thing out."

Dana looked doubtful. "You'd already tried to talk the whole thing out. He'd made it quite clear that he wasn't interested in talking it out. And think about it, Monica. Do you honestly believe he would have stopped at a kiss?"

The Brad I knew wouldn't have, but that wasn't the point. If I had known that going through with it would have stopped him committing suicide...

"Pointless thinking about it," said Dana. "We wouldn't have let you go through with it, anyway."

"How would you have known?"

Dana gave me a guilty looking smile. "We uh... we were watching the whole time, in case you needed some help talking him out of it."

"We?" I felt the panic rise. Maybe John did know after all. "Does John know?"

"No. Luckily." She gave me a smile. "He was inside blocking up the hole with Mulder. Kim is the only other one who saw."

So that's why she wasn't surprised. She had known the whole time what had happened. That was probably why she had followed me here. She would have told John to give her a minute. Now, John would be sitting back inside, worrying. And probably wondering, too.

"We did all we could for him, Monica. We all tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't respond. We couldn't have done anything more. You could have offered as much support as you wanted, but if he didn't want to accept it, then there's nothing you could have done. And you weren't the only one who tried. Skinner and Mulder both tried to talk to him while you were asleep last night with Kim. He wouldn't open up to them, either."

I felt my stomach lighten. I wanted to believe her. Everything she said made a little sense. "Do you really believe that? Do you really think there wasn't a choice?"

"Yes," she said, without hesitating. "I don't think there's any reason for you to blame yourself." She waited a second and squeezed my knee. "Ok?"

"Yeah," I whispered. "Okay then."

She smiled and then looked outside. Snow was beginning to fall, and the wind was picking up, whistling through the plane.

"Come on," she said. She picked up her bag, as well as Kim's. "I think that blizzard is finally about to hit."

I picked up my own bag, rescuing John's along the way, and together we walked back to the plane, to sit and idly wait for the blizzard to end.

*

The second I put a foot in the door John helped me in, taking his bag from me and putting it down in the corner, and then helping me with my own. He put a hand on my back and gently nudged me in the direction of a series of cushions against the wall. I sat down, sighing at the thought of another long wait. I seriously hoped that it would be worthwhile. Hopefully the rescue would pick up where it left off, and we would be rescued. But then there was the food issue. I blocked that thought out. My head was going to explode. All I could think about was Brad, and him lying in the snow. I felt a little better after having talked with Dana. She had helped me lose a lot of the guilt, but I still felt sad by the whole thing. Whether it had been my fault or not, I had still lost a good friend.

Mulder had brought over his and Skinner's bags earlier, they were forming a part of the wall in the plane, but weren't so deeply in that they weren't easily accessed. They could get to them if they needed to. Mulder and Skinner both gave me sympathetic, but awkward, looks, and turned their attention to blocking up the remaining small gap.

John had taken my hands and was rubbing them. I was so cold, but John soon brought them back to life so I could feel them again.

Kim seemed to have noticed the same thing about Scully. She was thanking her for bringing her bag over when she suddenly paused, her eyes on Scully's face and hands. Then she reached out and put the back of her hand to Scully's forehead. "You're freezing!" She glanced across at me. "You two shouldn't have stayed out that long if that's how cold it is out there."

Kim reached forward toward my jacket that Scully was still wearing. "It's covered in snow. Here, change it for one of mine."

Dana didn't complain. She did exactly as Kim said, and a minute later had hung my jacket over a discarded plane seat to dry, and put on one of Kim's.

"What about you, Monica?" asked John, removing his hands from mine, and up to lightly touch my face. "You cold?"

I was more numb than cold. It was a mental numb, though. I still hadn't got my mind off Brad. Knowing John was concerned, I took a second to consider it. Now that he mentioned it, I was a little chilly. But given that we were in a blizzard, that was to be expected.

"No more than I should be," I replied.

"Well your jacket's wet, anyway," he said, opening his bag and searching through it. He pulled out a warm black coat of his own and held it out for me. "Put this on. Damp clothes can't be good news, probably best to avoid it if we can."

I shrugged and started unbuttoning my coat. John put it aside and then held open his jacket for me to slide my arms into. It was so soft and warm, and smelt of John. Nothing could have been more comfortable. And just to complete the sensation, he then sat right beside me, reaching for my hand and giving it a little squeeze. It was just to let me know that he was there for me, and I appreciated it.

Mulder finished blocking up the hole, and though there were some tiny gaps in the new wall, I could tell it would hold fine, and should be successful in blocking out most of the cold, snow and wind. He then came and sat opposite me beside Scully. Kim sat on her other side, with Skinner on some cushions in the middle.

After four days, we were all far from looking like our usual selves. One of the most obvious differences was that Scully wasn't wearing make-up. It wasn't because she didn't have any with her, just that she had never bothered to put it on. Make-up had become one of those small insignificant things that didn't matter any more. Kim and I hadn't bothered with it, either. We'd all brushed our hair once or twice, but only to keep it manageable, and that was the only part of our physical appearance that we were thinking about.

We weren't looking very professional, either. We were all still wearing several layers of clothes, and had thrown aside most of our proper, professional clothes in favour of the more comfortable worn-  
in type. We weren't trying to make a fashion statement. Clothes became shared around. If someone was lacking warm clothing in their bag, it was borrowed from someone else. It didn't matter. I didn't care if someone was wearing half the clothes from my bag. I was glad that I had something to keep them warm. It was dangerously cold, and we had to look after each other in any and every way we could.

It also became apparent that none of us had taken a shower in four days. The smell was slightly noticeable, but I was surprised that I didn't care. It was a different world. In the FBI, I might have cared if someone next to me smelt. But up here, it didn't matter, because we were all equal. We all smelt a little. I understood it completely.

The most amazing thing was that in the four days we had spent on the mountain, my love of them had doubled. It was like I had never truly known them before. But the threat of death constantly over our heads had led to an amazing bond between us all. I didn't care if they stank. I didn't care if they hadn't looked at themselves in the mirror for four days. In our four days on the mountain, our friendship had grown twice as much as it had in all the time we'd worked together. Personal differences no longer mattered. It didn't matter who believed in aliens and who didn't. We were all on the same side now. We had all experienced the same pain. We all knew what each other were feeling. And it was the sense of this bond, or friendship, that allowed me to be honest about everything I was feeling about Brad.

Kim was the one who brought it up. We'd been sitting without talking for around five minutes, listening to the wind and snow outside when she decided that she couldn't stand the silence any longer. Her tired eyes met mine and she lazily said, "You must have known Follmer for a long time."

It was curiosity, as well as an opportunity for me to talk about him as much as I liked. It was an invitation to vent, and to lean on them. And I didn't hesitate. "Not that long. It would be about five years now."

"You met him in New York, right?" asked Mulder.

"Yeah, we worked a few cases together. We became friends." I stopped there. I knew Mulder, Scully and John knew about my relationship with Brad, but I didn't know if Kim and Skinner knew. Kim might have put the pieces together when she saw Brad try to kiss me, but all the same, I wasn't sure how much I should admit to.

It soon became clear that Kim knew. "How long were you together?"

I instantly glanced across to Skinner, but he didn't seem to be surprised by the question. He only looked back at me, wondering what the hell was going on, until a piece clicked in to place and he shook his head. "You've got nothing to worry about, Reyes. I can honestly tell you that I have no interest in making an issue out of it. The point where it would have mattered is long gone."

I felt John softly rub his thumb over mine and I was encouraged to go on. "We were together for about two years. Then I broke it off and transferred to New Orleans. I think I realised that it wasn't going to work out."

There was a few moments of thoughtful silence before Kim spoke again. "What was he like? I mean, I've never had much contact with him. He never even knew my name until all this happened."

"He was... passionate." It was the only word I could find to sum up Brad, but as soon as I saw Kim's look, I knew she had misinterpreted. "No, not like that. Well, I mean, that too. But just in general. If he had a goal, then he would achieve it. He would work hard until he got what he wanted. He was the same with cases. He wasn't afraid of the tough ones. He took anything and put everything in to trying to solve it." I paused. "He was never lazy with his job."

Skinner had been listening thoughtfully, and he nodded when I finished. "I haven't known him as long as long as you have, but from what I know of him, I agree. He was a good agent. He was a good leader."

Kim looked puzzled. "But he couldn't have been perfect or you wouldn't have broken up, right?"

I gave a slight nod. "He had an ego to match. It wasn't a problem much at the start. We still had a lot of good times together." I couldn't help smiling with the memory of some of them, and from the look on Dana and Kim's faces, they knew very well what I meant. "But as time went on, we started having less time together. I think the problem was he never really understood me. After a year, or eighteen months, things started to crumble."

I was trying to find words to describe what went wrong, but Dana ended up doing it for me. "Mind-blowing sex won't hold a relationship together forever. Unless there's something else there, it can never last. And if he never truly understood you..." she trailed off.

"Yeah, but I don't regret it. We were still good friends. He wasn't a bad person." I paused. I was frustrated, trying to get them to understand. I didn't want to sum up Brad's existence by being an egotistical ladder climber and a good fuck. He was so much more than that. "He was... he was a good friend. He was always there if you needed him. He was always willing to help you with a case, even when he had never been assigned to it. He had some faults, but everyone does. I think that overall... he was a fairly decent person."

I was feeling the heaviness come over me again, and as if sensing it, John held my hand tighter.

"We're not saying he was a bad person, Monica," said John. "Everyone has a good side. He was an Assistant Director of the FBI. He must have been doing something right."

I nodded, but I suddenly had trouble finding any words. Memories of Brad, and of our time together, were flashing through my mind. Happy memories, sad memories... all the times we fought, and then made up... all the long hours we spent on cases together...

And then I couldn't hold back any longer. A small tear escaped, flowing down my cheek and I stared down at John's hand, holding mine. He glanced up at me, and seeing me start to cry, he let go of my hand and turned around so he was sitting in front of me. Then he held out his arms and slowly drew me in to them, holding me, and letting me cry in to his shoulder.

"Let it out, Mon. Let it out." He softly rubbed my back. I continued to cry, clinging to him with my arms around his waist. And I don't know exactly how long it was we stayed like that, but I know that we were the last to lie down and go to sleep, and even when we did, I was still in his arms.

*

DAY FIVE

In John's arms, the blizzard was hardly noticeable. I was so warm that I felt like I could have stayed there forever, rescue or not. As fate would have it, it didn't turn out that way.

I was the last to wake. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was John peacefully gazing at me. I made no effort to move. Behind John I could hear the other four were already awake, and were whispering to each other about the weather, and other such topics.

"How do you feel?" John whispered.

I had trouble with an answer. It was another day stuck on the mountain. Brad was still gone. But at the same time, there was something comforting about John, and I didn't feel quite as bad as the night before.

"A little better," I said, truthfully.

He nodded and then he gave me an apologetic look. I knew he was going to get up before the words even left his mouth. "I gotta go pee. I'll be right back."

When I followed him with my eyes, I saw that there was again a gap in our wall. The blizzard must have stopped sometime during the night. Or maybe morning. I had no idea what time it was. Skinner followed John out.

I slowly sat up, pulling my coat around me to defend against the chill. Dana came and pushed a bottle of water into my hands.

"Have a drink," she said. "You haven't had any water for nearly twenty-four hours."

I took the bottle from her and sleepily started to remove the lid. I took a few sips, and when the cool water touched my tongue I realised she had been right. I hadn't even known.

As I drank, I noticed that Dana's eyes hadn't left me. I wished she'd smile. I knew that look on her face. It was of concern, and of holding something back. I wondered exactly what it was the others had been talking about while I had been asleep. The investigator in me started to look around. One. The blizzard had stopped. Two. No one was looking happy about it. Three. Kim was holding our radio. Four. Dana had a hand on my shoulder, which was probably unrelated, but had me thinking anyway. Her expression was grim.

John and Skinner came back in, and the second they were in they started roughly blocking up the hole again. Five.

I screwed the lid back on the bottle. Five points. And they weren't that hard to put together. "Are they predicting more blizzards?"

Dana looked over her shoulder, exchanging looks with John and Mulder. John shrugged and came to sit back down beside me. "Kim and Skinner caught another weather report. Search is still on hold, and they're predicting blizzards on and off for the next three days."

That explained why everyone was looking so grim. We were stuck here for another few days. But it wasn't that in itself that was worrying them, it was the consequences.

I took a deep breath, trying to temporarily block Brad from my mind. "Another three days. That'll mean at least seven days up here." I looked to Dana, who still had her hand on my shoulder. "We have water, but... can we survive that long?"

She was the doctor. She was the only one who would know. She didn't meet my eyes, but bit her bottom lip and looked down. That was answer enough.

John sat down on my other side, his hair ruffled and still looking tired. "We don't have much of a choice. Blizzards. We won't be able to hike out of here, and they won't be able to get up here. All we can do is wait."

Mulder was leaning against the wall next to Kim. "Even if we do survive another three days with no food, there's no guarantee that rescue will come after that, and we'd probably be too weak to attempt a hike out."

"So what are you suggesting?" Skinner asked. "Just give up? After all we've survived so far?"

Mulder's voice was monotone and he looked down at his knees. "I'm not suggesting anything."

Dana let her hand fall from my shoulder, and she took a deep breath, first looking at me, then at John, and then around to Mulder, Skinner and Kim. When she started talking, she refused to meet anyone's eyes, and she spoke in barely more than a whisper. "There is a way we can make it." She paused. "But you're not going to like it."

Kim rolled her eyes. "Well that would be a change. Personally, Dana, I don't think things can get any worse. If you know a way of getting out of here, just spit it out. I'm in a mood for bad news."

Mulder was sitting next to Kim, and he reached down and gave Kim's knee a quick squeeze. It was that movement alone that confirmed my suspicions.

"Oh, God." Dana's eyes snapped up at me, but all I could do was stare. I started to feel sick. "Tell me that's not what you're thinking."

"If you've got a better idea, I'd love to hear it," she said.

"Are you going to let us in on the secret, here?" Skinner asked, looking at me, Dana and Mulder and wondering what the hell was going on.

I couldn't stop myself. "Don't ask. You're better off not knowing."

John was looking at me questioningly, but I ignored him. I wasn't going to be the one to break it to them.

"Dana?" John asked, giving her a look of impatience.

She kept her mouth shut, and Mulder sighed and took over. "You must have heard the stories, the similar situations in history. No one likes doing it. But when it's life or death..."

That was all it took for Skinner, Kim and John to catch on.

"You're talking cannibalism," said John. He looked back to Dana. "Is that what you're thinking?"

Dana nodded. She glanced in to his eyes and then looked back to Mulder. "As a suggestion."

"Do you really think it's necessary?" Kim asked, throwing a panicked look at Scully. "Do you really think it's come to that?"

"You heard the radio," said Mulder. "They've called off the search, and we have every reason to believe that that weather report is true. Three more days of blizzards. We can't hike out in to that now. Even if the weather was clear, we can't hike out on no food. Not after four days. And from now on, we'll only get weaker. We haven't seen a single plane since our crash. I don't think they know where we are. Even if the weather clears after another three days, we're going to be too weak to walk out, and I don't believe the chances of them finding us right then are high enough for us to risk death, because honestly, I don't have that much faith in them."

"But so what?" yelled Kim. "Those aren't just random people out there. We know them! You've worked with them! And now you're just going to cut them up and make a feast out of it?"

"It wouldn't be like that," said Dana firmly. "I'm just talking bare minimum. As much as we need to survive, and no more than that."

"But they're your friends!" she yelled. "How would you explain it to their families? 'Sorry, but I needed a snack?' Think about it! It's ridiculous! And who are you going to start with? Holly? Follmer?"

My stomach lurched.

Before I could respond, Dana took my hand and John sat up to glare at Kim.

"What are you trying to do?" John shouted. "This is a game of life of death, Kim. Yes it's horrifying, but unless you want to join them out there then you have no choice. I don't like the thought of it, and neither do Scully and Mulder, but between that and starving to death..."

"No one said anything about Holly or Follmer," Scully said gently. "And people will understand. It's been done before."

"And does that mean it's right?" said Kim, glaring back at her.

"If I died," said Mulder slowly, "I'd have nothing against anyone here using me to stay alive. If it was the difference between keeping any of you alive, or having you starve to death, then I'd want you to do it."

"I agree," said Dana.

Kim shook her head, still stunned. "But we have a break in the weather. What if you started, and the rescue showed up? What if you're wrong?"

"You saw yourself how remote it is out here. You saw how far these mountains stretch," said Mulder. "And you were the one who found that weather report. We all heard it. Blizzards for days with the search called off."

Kim spent a minute in silence, thinking it over. Then she looked fiercely back at Mulder and Scully. "I can't stop you doing it, but I'm not having any part in it, and I'm not going to support you if something goes wrong."

There was another short silence and then John turned to me. "Monica? What do you think?"

My mind was still back on Kim asking if we were going to eat Follmer first. The thought of cutting up someone I knew, and eating them, was horrifying. Every part of my civilised mind was telling me that it was wrong, yet my stomach hurt from lack of food, and I knew that we were all weak since the plane crash. I hated it, but I had to agree with Mulder. I couldn't see that rescue was likely. Even if they were searching in the right spot, they wouldn't resume until after the blizzards stopped, and I didn't even know if we could survive that long.

"I don't want to die," I said. "And I don't want to lose anyone else."

John nodded and then looked across at Skinner. "What about you?"

"I... I don't know. If I had to, maybe. But I don't know."

There was a familiar whistle of the wind picking up. The next blizzards would be soon approaching.

"If we're going to do this, we'd better do it fast. We can't do it while it's snowing," said Mulder. He looked to Scully and John for support.

"Who'll do it?" asked John. He'd looked back down at the floor with a frown.

Scully sighed. "I will. It makes sense if I do it."

Mulder reached for his bag and dug out a knife. He unfolded it and handed it to her. She hesitated for a moment before putting her hand around it and getting to her feet.

"Stay here," she said. "No point in seeing it if you don't have to."

I appreciated the fact that she was trying to protect us against having to see the horror of cutting up an agent, but she was also our friend, and I did not want her to have to do it alone. Even if she was a doctor and had cut up hundreds of bodies before. This was different. Kim was still refusing to look at us, and Dana was going to need all of our support. Even with all the logical arguments in the world that stated why we were doing the right thing, it did not make it an easy thing to do.

"No," I said, pushing myself to my feet. "You can't go by yourself."

I went to follow her, but Mulder held out a hand and took my elbow, stopping me. "Let me go. You already have enough to deal with."

I was going to object, but then I considered that he was probably right. Brad would be lying out there in the snow, and I wasn't sure I was ready to see that. I had cried on John's shoulder last night, but I was still a long way from accepting what had happened. Mulder was very close to Scully. They would be able to handle it together.

Mulder was still looking at me, worried that I was going to object his hint that I was emotionally weak. But I didn't. Faking strength would only lead to more trouble later on, and if I had been in the place of Mulder, I would have done the same thing. Accepting their friendship was the best thing to do. They knew Brad was my friend. I'd told them all about it the night before. And to be honest, watching Scully cutting up a body wasn't on my dream list of things to see, anyway. If Mulder wanted to go, he could go.

"Sure," I said, and went to resume my place beside John.

Kim had crossed her arms across her chest, and wouldn't meet my eyes. Skinner was looking from her to me, and then he shook his head and distracted himself by digging through his bag for a new pair of socks.

John took my hand, but this time it was more for his own comfort. I could feel him shaking slightly. "Tell me we're doing the right thing."

Again, I went through all the facts. Logically, we were doing the right thing. Emotionally, we couldn't have done anything more destructive. But this was our lives we were talking about. I didn't want to die. I didn't want anyone else to die. Rescue wasn't going to come any time soon.

"I believe we don't have a choice."

*

Ninety-six hours ago, we had been on the plane, heading back to Vancouver in the storm. Everyone had been tired, but they were alive. Just under twenty-four hours ago, we had hit a death toll of sixteen. And now, in the beginnings of our fifth day trapped on the mountain, we were about to resort to cannibalism to survive.

My head was still spinning. This couldn't be happening. I was so glad that I was not Mulder or Scully. They were the ones who were actually going to have to make the cut. They were the ones who would have to peel back the clothing and put the knife in. I didn't envy them.

Things just kept getting worse. First to crash at all, then to lose Holly, then Brad, and now so soon after Brad's death I was going to have to eat one of the other agents to survive. I felt sick already.

We sat fidgeting. John and I kept exchanging looks, knowing each other's pain. Kim had stopped refusing to look at me, but now she wouldn't look away, so it wasn't much of an improvement. She made me feel like a criminal, and I had to look to John again for silent confirmation that we were doing the right thing.

John had turned an interesting shade of grey, and he didn't seem sure any more. I chose a spare cushion on the floor to look at. I didn't want to stare at the entrance, waiting. I would be able to hear them.

I thought they were going to bring it inside, but after ten minutes Mulder leaned in and looked at me. "Scully says you can come out now."

I didn't want to. All my enthusiasm for going outside had disappeared. I had a choice. I could go outside, and try to bring myself to do it out there in front of the bodies, or I could stay inside and attempt it with Kim's eyes boring in to me.

I quietly got to my feet and walked over to Mulder. He met at the entrance and nodded at me. He looked ill. I reached down and gave his hand a brief squeeze on the way past.

I heard a shuffle of feet behind me. John was following.

The wind had picked up, but it was not yet snowing. I held John's coat tight around me, but it was like it wasn't even there. My hair was whipping my face, and it stung my eyes. I tried to blink through it all to see Scully standing over beside the wall of the plane, her head lowered.

I was so relieved to see the bodies were covered in snow that I almost smiled. Of course, the blizzard had buried them. There was only one that wasn't, in the middle... a male lying on his stomach. I saw a tear in the clothing, and I looked away. I hadn't eaten in four days yet I still felt like I was going to vomit.

"Monica."

I chanced looking at Scully again. She had raised her head, taken a deep breath and was now holding out something in her head. It was only a small lump, but I knew that it was human flesh.

My feet wouldn't move. Suddenly I agreed with Kim. To say it was right was one thing, but to bring myself to do it was entirely different.

Mulder walked around me, up to Scully, and took the piece. He then walked a little away across the snow, and with his back to us, raised it to his mouth.

My gaze fell to the body in the snow. I knew that if I died, I would want them to do it. But that agent hadn't had a choice. His family weren't getting a choice. Was it right for us to assume that solving our hunger was more important than returning the body intact? Maybe we could try surviving on water alone. The rescue would show up after the blizzards stopped.

John was next to take a piece. He'd come prepared. He had a bottle of water in his hand, and he quickly stuffed the piece in his mouth, and immediately washed it down with a few huge gulps of water.

John took a few deep breaths and leant back against the plane next to Scully. He held the bottle of water out for me.

"Stop thinking, Monica," said Scully. "Push it all out of your mind. Don't think about it. Just swallow."

She held a small piece for me. I reached forward and took it. It was like a rock. The body had frozen through. Even with the knife, it was still impressive that she had been able to cut it. It was a tiny piece, I could probably swallow it whole. But no matter how I looked at it, I couldn't blank out the fact that it was a part of a person. It had been part of an FBI agent...

"If you can't do it for yourself, then do it for us," said John. He pointed down to the line of the dead. "Sixteen dead already. We couldn't stand losing you as well."

Mulder had returned and he joined our little circle too. "Two seconds and it'll all be over."

Drawing on their strength, I threw the piece in to my mouth, pushed it to the back, and then raised the bottle of water and drank, washing it down my throat in one swallow.

Immediately I started coughing. It felt like there was a lump in my throat, even though I knew it was clear. My whole mouth was frozen, and the cold swept through my whole body.

Scully took the bottle of water from my hand and then started thumping me on the back.

"You okay?"

I nodded and my coughing started to slow. Then I stood up again, recovering from the lack of oxygen.

It was strange. I had swallowed, but my stomach didn't feel full.

John had thought of another problem. "What about the others? What are we going to do?"

I thought of Kim and Skinner. Skinner we could probably persuade, but Kim could be a problem. Maybe after another day she would give in. She couldn't hold on much longer on an empty stomach. She had to give in.

"Kim's already shown us how stubborn she can be," said Mulder, obviously referring to her hike up the mountain. "Maybe if we give her a little more time, maybe until this next short blizzard passes, and then we'll try again to persuade her."

"What about Skinner?" I asked.

"Skinner would have come out if he was ready to do it now," said Scully. "I agree with Mulder. This blizzard is coming fast. Let's just wait until it passes, and then we'll talk to them again. They should be okay until then."

John nodded and gazed around at the sky and the building clouds. The wind still seemed to be getting stronger. I couldn't get my eyes off the bodies on the ground. They were covered with snow. Another blizzard and we would have trouble finding them. Scully and Mulder had already had to dig around for the first body. And Brad. My eyes went down the end of the line. Under the last mound of snow would be Brad. Kim had to be wrong. There was no way we would touch Brad. He would be going home intact. But that meant that I thought Brad was more important than the other agents. Just because I had known him better, it didn't mean that he was more worth saving.

I'd had enough of the talk about what we were doing, and I found myself fighting the wind to reach the end of the line. I knelt down in the snow, and I reached out with my bare hands and started to dig. I could still see Brad's face in my mind, covered with blood. It had all been so sudden, and I had never even said goodbye. He deserved more than that. Maybe it hadn't been my fault, but he at least deserved a goodbye.

My hands were so cold that they were past numb, but I still continued to scrape away the snow. Eventually I saw some hair, and then I was brushing away blood-stained snow from his face. Over his nose, across his eyes, and down past his neck and chin.

I put my hand on his shoulder, needing to touch him. I didn't need to look over my shoulder to know that Mulder, Scully and Doggett would be watching me. That was their problem. I didn't feel like crying over Brad. I had already done that. I just wanted to look at him. I wanted to think and remember. Eating another agent was a necessity, but I still felt like a monster or some kind. I felt different now. I had done something that most people never have to do. From now on, the world was divided in to two groups: those who had done it, and those who hadn't. Brad belonged to the other world, or the other group which would freak at what we had done. But I didn't want to lose touch with that world. I wanted to think, and remember everything that we had been, and every moment we had together. Especially the good ones.

My intention had been to say goodbye, but now that I had uncovered his face, I couldn't find any words. There was still so much blood. He was almost unrecognisable. And despite my new depth of friendship with the three people watching me, I couldn't bring myself to say anything when they were watching. So I squeezed Brad's shoulder, and then pulled back, scraping a bit of the snow back on top of him.

"Are you all right?" asked John. He'd appeared at my side and put a hand to my back.

"I'm fine," I said. It wasn't a lie. I was fine, I had just needed a few minutes with Brad. I was grateful that they had allowed it, and that they had not interfered, and now that I had said my mental goodbye, I let him lead me back to the plane. Halfway there, Dana and Mulder joined us, Dana also putting an arm around me. God help us if I we lost anyone else. I was only beginning to get to know Skinner and Kim, but if something happened to John, Scully or Mulder, I wasn't sure I would be able to pull myself back up again. But as long as we were together, I could relax. And, hopefully, we would not have to part until the rescue came.

*  
THE FIFTH NIGHT

"It's getting dark."

John. With an understatement worthy of the record books. It already was dark. I knew he was next to me, but only because I was partially leaning against him. It was for warmth. The air had gone beyond cold. Freezing didn't seem to describe it, either. It was closer to a word like deadly. We'd sat separately for several hours, shivering, before John had suggested I move closer.

I tried to make out the others. I remembered Dana and Mulder were sitting opposite us, also huddling together. I hadn't heard any noise, so I assumed they hadn't moved. Kim was half buried under a huge pile of blankets and clothing. We all were, but the difference with her was that she actually looked warm and comfortable. I hadn't heard her speak for quite a while, and I had a feeling she had fallen asleep. Skinner was also under a lot of coats and clothing, and although he was still awake, he had been very quiet since our decisive actions of that morning. Neither Kim or Skinner had said much to us. We'd made an effort to get them talking, but they were far away in thought and weren't too keen on participating.

"Doesn't anyone have a light?" I asked. I leant out of John's arms and started to feel around the floor. We'd had them the other nights, but where they were now was a mystery.

Or so I thought. A light snapped on, blasting away in to my eyes. I blinked several times. "Cut it out, Mulder, you're going to blind me."

He pointed it away at the wall beside me and I waited a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room.

"We should be quiet," said Dana, lowering her voice to a near whisper. "Kim's asleep."

I looked across to Kim, who had her eyes closed and mouth open slightly.

"How does she manage to look so warm?" asked John, glaring across at her with envy.

"That's what I'd like to know," said Mulder. "Must be all that anger radiating around her. A pocket of heat."

Scully smiled and gently swatted his arm. "It's all the blankets, actually."

I felt John slide his arms around my waist and pull me up against him, until I was almost in his lap. "What about body heat? Shouldn't that keep us warm?"

"It would work better if you were lying down." Then she suddenly detached herself from Mulder and crawled over to us. She pulled the coats off that we had been using as blankets and then took a step back. "Come on, lie down. You'll be much warmer that way."

I went to move forward and get up, but John still had his arms firmly around me and wouldn't let me move.

"My butt's gone to sleep. I ain't going anywhere."

I was surprised when Dana smiled, and then gave him a lethal look which I think must be restricted to doctors dealing with uncooperative patients. "Then you'd better move now before I un-  
numb it for you."

John stared at her, obviously trying to figure out what she had in mind and debating whether he wanted to risk it.

"You'd better listen to her, Doggett. I don't like the sound of that," said Mulder, who threw Scully a smirk anyway.

John loosened his grip on me with a sigh and I crawled out of his arms, twisting myself around until I was lying down in front of Scully, but parallel to the wall of the plane. John moved and stretched out next to me, not wasting any time in putting an arm around my waist and pulling me back in to his arms. I rolled over so I was facing him and then put my arms around him.

Dana was still smiling, but for a very different reason, which I had no trouble figuring, but for which John was still looking puzzled. She quickly cleared her throat and then started putting the coats over us. She did a thorough job. She tucked one around our legs and feet, one around our waists and gently put another one up to our necks, until just our faces were exposed. Then she started randomly piling other clothing on top, until I suddenly understood exactly how Kim looked so comfortable, and why she was asleep.

Mulder was looking at us with the same envious look he'd used for Kim seconds before. "Scully, maybe we should do that, too. It's only going to get colder in here and I don't want to take any chances."

Dana shrugged and picked up the coats, then she came and situated herself behind me. Mulder was close on her other side, and together they started putting the jackets and clothing over themselves.

Dana was close enough to me that there would be an advantage of heat, but there was also another problem. "Dana, maybe you should move over a bit. I don't want to roll over in the middle of the night and squash you."

She actually laughed. "I doubt you will. And if you do, I'm not worried. As long as I can breathe, I'm happy. Don't take this the wrong way, but at the moment, the closer together we all are, the better off we'll be."

John pulled me closer and I wriggled in, accepting his warmth. I'd shut my eyes and my mind was beginning to blur when Mulder brought me back to full consciousness with a whispered 'goodnight' and turned off the flashlight, setting it down on the floor next to him.

"Goodnight," said John.

"Sweet dreams," I said, and then realised that in our current situation there wasn't much chance of it.

I was regretting saying it when Dana said something even better.

"I have to say, with all the sleepovers I went to as a child, this one beats them all, hands down."

I didn't have the energy to ask. But when I'd shut my eyes, and was listening to the silence, I was beginning to see what she meant. And when I'd thought about it a little more, I even began to find myself agreeing with her.

*


	2. Chapter 2

*  
DAY SIX

I have no idea what time of morning it was when I woke, but I know that several hours had passed. It was still dark, and I could hear the squeal of the wind outside, a sign that we were in another blizzard. It wasn't as fierce as before, though. Maybe we were near the end of it. I could tell the air was cold only because I was breathing it in. The rest of me was nearly warm, curled up in to John. Our legs and arms were tangled together, trying to get the most out of the body warmth, and I was so comfortable that I started to wonder why the hell I was awake.

My eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and I tried to disentangle myself enough so that I could look over and check on everyone else. Kim was still sleeping, as was Skinner. I made sure to check they were breathing before turning my attention to the gap next to me. Mulder was still there, but there was now an empty space where Scully had been.

But where was she? Our temporary wall was still intact, so she hadn't gone outside. Not that she would have been stupid enough to want to. That only left one option. She was in the pilot's cabin. And sure enough, when I glanced over at the door, I could see faint light coming out from under it.

I only debated it for two seconds before pulling away from John to go and check on her. Holly had shut herself in there, and that had led to some of the biggest mistakes we had ever made. Dana was probably fine, but there was always that tiny chance that she wasn't, and I wasn't willing to risk it.

I tapped on the door as softly as I could, so that I wouldn't wake anyone. "Dana? Are you ok in there?"

I could hear a zip being done up, and I suddenly understood. We had put the chamber pot in there for anyone to use in private during the blizzards. Plan was to empty it again when the weather calmed a little.

The door opened and Dana came out, holding the light, and trying to rub her hands together in an effort to warm them. "I'm fine. Just can't sleep."

I nodded in sympathy. "This blizzard's pretty wild. I can't believe I slept through it."

"You weren't as bad as John," she said, with a smile. "He must have spent close to an hour snoring." She glanced over at his now silent form. "I thought he'd never shut up."

"Haven't you had any sleep at all?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I'm just not -"

I cut her off with a hand hard around her arm. "Shh!"

She eyed me warily. I focused on the noise outside. I could no longer hear the wind. The blizzard must have nearly stopped, too. But there was something else. There was a distant noise, like a quiet rumble, that I could not decipher.

I loosened my grip on her arm. "Can you hear that?"

Suddenly the rumble increased in volume. It sounded like an earthquake, except the ground was perfectly still. It could have been thunder, but my instincts told me it wasn't that, either.

"Shit," said Scully, realising what it was at the exact same time as me. She grabbed my arm hard in panic. "Avalanche."

I knew we only had seconds, so I did the only thing I could. I grabbed her hard and pulled her up against the wall with me, away from the blocked up windows and all holes in the plane. I had a split second to memorise where the other four were, but no time to warn them or wake them. All I had time to do was grab Dana and pull her up against the wall with me.

The rumble grew louder. My ear drums were going to burst. Scully's fingernails were digging in to my arm that deep that I wouldn't have been surprised if I was cut. It was pointless trying to shout to wake the others, they would not hear over the noise. And even if they woke now they would not have time to move.

There might have been a crash, but we could not hear it. All the clothing and bags that had been stuffed in the windows exploded back inside the plane and an endless flow of snow rolled in. The barrier we'd made to block up the hole in the plane crashed in to pieces and the bags and chairs went flying.

After that I saw nothing. I closed my eyes and held tight to Scully. The snow hit my feet, freezing my ankles, and then continued to pile up around us. When it hit my knees I was thrown against the wall by the force, and if I hadn't had Dana beside me I probably would have fallen over and been buried in it. Then it was up to my waist. It started slowing when it reached my chest, and stopped before it had reached my shoulders.

The rumble disappeared in to the distance. Then there was silence.

Dana and I were both breathing heavily. We glanced at each other only long enough to see that we were both fine and then we put our arms out and started to sweep away the snow.

"The others," Dana gasped, frantically digging herself out. "Where are they?"

Everything was buried. There was no sign of John, Mulder, Kim or Skinner. They were under the masses of snow. Somewhere.

I thought hard, trying to pull up the memory. Then I pointed carefully over at the other wall. "Kim was over there, with Skinner. John and Mulder were a bit further up."

But even then I was unsure. They would not have long with limited oxygen. Their survival depended on us knowing exactly where they were. If we were inches out in our dig it could be fatal.

I had finally swept aside enough snow that I could move, and then I started crawling and scrambling over it to get to where I guessed John and Mulder were.

"You find Kim and Skinner. I'll get the others," I said. Scully crawled off in the given direction.

Head and feet. Which end was his head? Cabin end. It was cabin end. If I only uncovered their faces, so they could breathe, that would be enough. I took a stab at it and then started kicking and sweeping snow aside. It was all so soft. I could not find anything. I moved so much snow and yet I had not found a single solid object. They had to be here somewhere. I had never realised how spacious it had all been until it was full of snow.

"John!" I yelled. "John, hang on. I'm digging you out!" I yelled. Then I repeated the same thing to Mulder. I had no idea if they could hear me, but if they could, maybe they would panic less...

And then my foot hit something. The side of someone. It was definitely a body. I changed my direction and started sweeping away snow from my feet.

A patch of clothing. It was a coat. Mulder. Mulder and Scully had been using that coat as a cover.

"Hold on, Mulder," I shouted. "Just a few seconds longer, you're going to be fine..."

I scraped the snow away from the coat, and continued until I found his neck. Then my frozen hands made contact with Mulder's chin, then his cheeks and his nose... I scraped it all away until I could finally see his terrified eyes looking up at me. He started to breathe.

I wasted no time. Mulder could breathe. Digging him out fully could wait until I had found John.

"John!" I shouted. I jumped over to the other side of Mulder, guessing at how much space there had been between them, and then I continued to kick and throw aside the snow.

As I worked, I glanced up at Dana. Kim was uncovered and was breathing deeply. She had the same terrified look Mulder had. Dana was still digging for Skinner.

"John, where are you?" I said, to myself. "Where the hell are you, John?"

I was beginning to think that maybe he had shifted position while I wasn't looking when I finally hit him hard in the chest. I was so frantic that I had forgotten about being gentle.

I scraped snow away from his chest, up to his shoulders, and then I began to uncover his neck and face, exactly as I had done Mulder.

"John," I said, wiping it away from his nose. "Breathe, John. Can you breathe?"

His blue eyes, which I normally found comforting, were full of nothing but fear. He could breathe. Thank God. I glanced up at Dana, prepared to go and help her search for Skinner, but she was already brushing snow off his face.

"Monica," John rasped, "the others. Where are the others?"

"They're fine," I said, and I put a hand to the side of his face. "Everyone's out now."

He relaxed a little, but he was still in too much shock to calm down completely.

I heard some shuffling and I spun around to see that I had dug out Mulder enough to allow him to finish the job himself. He was digging out his legs. Dana couldn't help him. She had cleared the heads of Kim and Skinner, but was now helping them to get their bodies free.

I made a start for John. His chest was mainly free, so I began clearing his arms. First his left, then his right. My hands were so cold. Hopefully I wouldn't have frostbite. They were certainly numb enough.

I freed his arms and I worked my way down to his waist. I was at his hips, nearing his groin, when he dizzily sat up and pushed my hands away.

I stopped and looked at him. Surely he wasn't embarrassed. This was a life or death situation, help from a friend, he couldn't possibly think I was touching him sexually. John looked away from me and gently began to finish the job himself. Something was wrong. He couldn't be aroused. Not only was there nothing arousing about the situation, but he was uncovered enough that I would have noticed if he was. But he was still embarrassed, even now that I was no longer touching him.

Then it dawned on me. John had had an accident. The pressure of the snow, or the shock of it, must have caused him to urinate.

I wanted to tell him that it was ok, but I knew he wouldn't want the others to know. So instead I reached forward and gave his shoulder a squeeze. He chanced looking at me, and I knew that he could tell I knew what his problem was. He sheepishly looked down again, but looked grateful for my lack of reaction. It was almost like he was expecting me to smile or think it was funny, or that he was a child. It hadn't been his fault. It didn't even matter.

Thinking that John would appreciate it if I gave him a moment or two to himself, I turned back to Mulder. He was pulling his feet out from under the snow.

"Mulder, you ok?" I asked. I put a hand on his arm. I didn't know Mulder as well as Scully did. I was still learning to read his body language, but he was shaking. He was in shock.

I put an arm around him, and started rubbing his back. "You're ok now. Everyone's ok."

He nodded and then coughed, trying to find his voice. "Bit of a nasty shock."

I glanced over my shoulder at Scully. She was watching him, even though she was trying to calm down Kim.

Mulder suddenly took my arm. I turned my attention back to him.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you for getting me out."

I continued to rub his back. He was still shivering. I looked back to Scully again and gave a little wave for her to come over. Mulder needed her, not me. She came and sat down on Mulder's other side. I withdrew my arm, and she pulled him in to a hug, his head softly resting on her shoulder.

Kim and Skinner looked fine for the moment, so I turned my attention back to John. He had somehow shifted up to our ruined wall and had dug his bag out of the rubble. He pulled it toward him. I knew he wanted to change, but changing without everyone knowing what had happened wasn't going to be easy.

I felt so sorry for him that I decided to take control of the situation. I turned back to the others. Mulder and Scully had broken out of their hug, and now she was rubbing her hands over him, trying to get him out of his shock and make him warm.

"We should all change," I said. "If you stay in your current clothes the snow will soak through and we'll all end up with hypothermia. Everyone had their bags in here. They should be here, just buried under the snow. If your bag was closed then your clothes inside should be dry and you can put them on."

Doctor Scully immediately backed me up. "That's a good idea. You're right. Hypothermia is the last thing we need right now."

It took around five to ten minutes to find all the bags. Everyone's movements were slow. Mulder was fast recovering from his shock, but Kim was making slower progress. We were all so stunned by what had just happened, and so focused on trying to get our heads around it, that finding bags didn't get much effort put in to it.

Dana and I weren't quite as shocked as everyone else, but only because we had known what was going to happen a few seconds before it did. Short warning though it was, it was still infinitely better than being buried in your sleep, like everyone else. They had woken up to a rumble, and before they knew what was happening they couldn't breathe. Then they had had to lie there for nearly a minute, hoping that someone would be able to dig them out.

Unfortunately, Dana being in the same situation as me meant that she was just as observant as I had been. While everyone was half-  
heartedly digging for their bags, she came over to John and I and gave him a worried look.

"Are you ok?" she asked, putting a hand on his knee.

John looked at her hand, as if afraid that it was going to travel higher. "Fine."

I could see Dana catch the way he was looking at her, and her eyes travelled over him, to his embarrassed look, and to his firm grip on his bag, and then where her own hand was.

I could see the cogs turning in her mind.

She took a little longer than I had to piece it together, but the second she figured it, she broke out in to a soft "Oh".

John refused to meet her eyes.

"Don't do that to me, John," she said, almost smiling with relief. "For a second I thought you were actually hurt..."

To my surprise, she squeezed his knee and leant in, lowering her voice. "Don't worry about it. Not your fault. And if it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one who it's happened to."

She glanced meaningfully over at Mulder and then pushed his bag in to his hands.

"Here. Dry clothes. Change. We have more important things to worry about."

*

"Is this really necessary?" asked Kim, closing her eyes. "Can't we just turn around?"

John had already unbuttoned half the buttons on his shirt. Then he caught me looking and gave me a teasing smile. I quickly closed my eyes.

"What difference does it make?" asked John.

"None for you," said Kim. "But given that ten minutes ago I was buried under an avalanche when I was asleep, I'd prefer to keep my eyes open, if you don't mind."

"Yeah, well if we hear one coming, then you have permission to open them," said John.

"The entrance is already blocked," said Scully. "We should be safe for now."

If it was meant to calm her, it failed. "For now? What do you mean 'for now'? Expecting more disasters?"

"I hope not," said Skinner. "I've had enough death and disaster to last me a lifetime."

"I didn't mean it like that," said Scully. "Anyway, what are you worried about? You've survived a plane crash, freezing temperatures, no food, and now an avalanche. It can't get any worse."

"Saying that is a sure sign that it will," said Mulder.

"If we're careful, and sensible, we'll make it. We just have to wait for these blizzards to clear, and then we can think about maybe walking out of here," I said.

There was an unusual silence coming from Kim's direction, and it hit me that she was thinking about what we had done. She would not be able to hike out on an empty stomach, and she must slowly be realising that rescue was not likely. Maybe she would come to see the sense in the idea. Skinner, too.

The thought was broken by John. "We're done. You can open your eyes now."

We opened them and I reached for my bag and dry clothes. It was the females turn to change.

*

We'd finished changing, and now we focused on the situation surrounding us. John and I had begun to get annoyed with sitting on the snow, so we were now both settled on top of our bags. I'd never been more uncomfortable.

"So the entrance is blocked," said Kim, pointing to where a wall had been, but was now completely engulfed in snow. "Have you considered how we're going to get out? What happens when that freezes solid?"

"Well I say let it," said Scully, shrugging. "The sooner the better. It should keep us warm."

"Great," said John. "You mean we're stuck in an igloo."

I gave him a smile. "Where's your sense of adventure, John?"

"Don't have one. I used it all up on that last poltergeist case you all dragged me in to," he said.

He glared at me, and then at Mulder and Scully. I couldn't help smiling.

"That was a legitimate investigation, John," I said, unable to resist the opportunity to debate it. "If we hadn't helped out on that, that poor couple would have been haunted forever. I mean, imagine it. We were only there one night. They would have had to put up with that for years. It might not mean much in the FBI's record books, but that was probably one of the most worthwhile cases we've had in months. Think of how lucky it is that we came across it -"

"Monica?"

I paused, holding back a smile at the look of impatience on his face. "Yeah?"

"Shut up."

I smiled and decided maybe I should get back to the topic. "The snow is heaviest at the entrance to the plane. It should be empty in the pilot's cabin. The windows in there were smashed. It might have a thin layer of snow, but nothing that we can't dig through to get out."

John struggled to his feet. "I'll check it out."

As it was my idea, I got up to follow. I was sick of sitting around.

We pushed open the door and walked through. We'd been right. Most of the cabin was untouched by the avalanche. A very small amount of snow had come in from under the door, but most of it had been held back. We were right about the smashed windows. Some had fallen in from there, but a lot less than there could have been. The seats were covered in it, but I could still see the floor, and that was a lot better than the rest of the plane.

I was carefully putting my hand in between all the shattered glass, to try and estimate how thick the snow cover was, when John softly closed the door.

I turned around, wondering why he'd bothered to shut it, but John just stared at the floor, to where our chamber pot was sitting. It had not moved. It, and everything in it, was exactly as it had been left.

John looked at it with disgust. "Of all the things to have survived."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously, Monica. Think about it. Everything on the whole mountain must have got covered. We all got buried. Our shelter is full of snow. And somehow, that tiny thing, full of nothing more important than..." he waved his hand at it, "that... survives." He rolled his eyes. "If there's a God, he has a crap sense of humour."

I decided to ignore John's accidental play on words and just nodded along, letting him vent his frustration at our situation.

He shrugged and leaned against the back of one of the pilot's seats. "Guess it explains where you and Scully were, anyway."

I nodded and leaned against the other seat. "Where Scully was, actually. It wasn't a team effort." Before he could roll his eyes at my bad joke, I smiled and went on. "I woke and found her gone. I was going to check on her when she emerged from here. That's when the avalanche hit."

"I suppose we're lucky you two were up. If you hadn't been, we mightn't have made it." He looked down at the chamber pot. "Funny. I never thought Scully's bladder would save my life."

I grinned, but before I could joke back, he was looking at me seriously, and the moment was lost.

"Look, Monica. I wanted to say thanks. Thanks for... digging me up. When that hit me, I was sure I was going to die. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't even move. But then I felt you hit me in the chest, and it was like everything was going to be fine. I just... thanks."

He stood up and started to walk over to me.

"You don't have to thank me. I just had to get you out. In fact, I was probably more scared than you were. There was so much snow. I didn't know if I was going to find you in time."

"Well, you did."

He looked as though he wanted to say something more, but then he shrugged and closed the distance between us, taking me in to a hug. I put my arms around his shoulders and pulled him to me. He buried his face in my neck. And we held each other. It was a better thank you than he could have ever given in words, and it also comforted me. So much had happened in our six days. It was good to have a moment with him where we could talk, away from the others. I mean, we loved them, but John and I needed a few minutes just for ourselves. So we used those few minutes to hug, and to not only let our emotions out over the recent avalanche, but of everything else that had happened.

Slowly we pulled away, dropping our arms from each other. He let his hand fall to mine to hold it briefly.

"Maybe we should go back. Any longer and they'll wonder what we're up to."

I nodded and gave his hand a quick squeeze. Avalanches, deaths, plane crashes and not a sign of civilisation anywhere. Strangely, as we went on, I was beginning to get used to it. We could handle anything. We had survived so much that I was starting to feel confidence in our eventual escape. If we were going to die, there were plenty of chances before now. We were going to make it.

*

"I always thought we didn't have much space in here," said Kim. We had cleared a lot of the snow away, leaving us a corner to sit in. "Now, I'm wishing we still had it."

She sat herself down next to Skinner. They were against the wall next to the door that led to the cabin. She was covering herself with leftover coats and was putting on a third pair of socks.

Skinner shrugged next to her. "I think maybe we should be positive. In a funny kind of way, you could call it cosy."

John made a sound that was halfway between a cough and a laugh. "I wish I had an imagination like yours."

I was against another wall, between Scully and John. Mulder was on Scully's other side. We were all tired, but no one wanted to sleep. Having an avalanche bury them during their last one left them with a fear of ever sleeping again, at least until we were back home. Yet not sleeping was one of the worst things we could do. It would only cause our health to deteriorate further.

I didn't need to check a watch to know that we still had hours before sunrise. Not that sunrise was important. The blizzard might not have stopped by then, and there was a good chance we would be stuck in the plane all day. But still sleep was important. Especially for Dana. She had her head leaning on Mulder's shoulder, yet still looked as though she was going to refuse to allow herself to close her eyes.

It made sense to be honest. There was nothing to be gained by lying about it. "I know no one wants to sleep at the moment, but the worst thing we can do is to stay awake. If we're going to make it out of here, we need to be at the best we can be. Sleep deprivation will only add to our problems."

No one looked to pleased, but Mulder was the only one to voice objection. "We just got buried and you want us to go to sleep?"

"I'm not saying that it won't happen again. I know there's a chance it could. But I don't think letting our fear get the better of us is going to do any good." I paused, searching Mulder's face for some sign of agreement. I didn't see any, so I decided to be even more honest and I turned to Scully. "Dana, you need to sleep. You haven't slept at all."

She sleepily shook her head against Mulder's shoulder, too exhausted to even deny that she needed it. "I can't."

"I'll stay awake," I said. "We can take it in turns. Everyone who wants to sleep can do so now. I'll be listening for trouble, and when you wake later, I'll sleep then."

She looked unsure, and I was grateful when John jumped in. "Good idea. I'll stay awake too. Best if you're not alone. You four sleep. We'll take care of everything."

"Are you sure?" asked Mulder. Scared though he was, I knew he wanted Scully to sleep just as much as we did.

"Positive," said John. "We're a team, aren't we? You sleep. I promise we won't shut our eyes until yours are open again."

She was still debating it, so I seized the moment and I reached out to take her hand. "I promise I won't sleep. I mean, we are a 'team', if you go by the dictionary definition of it. But everyone here is also my friend, and I'm not going to let anything happen to any of you. This isn't a game. It's not some stupid FBI exercise. This is as serious as it gets, and I'm not going to let you down. We've already lost Brad and Holly, and I'd rather die than let anything happen to anyone else." I paused, glancing across at Kim, and then went on after seeing that she was all right. "It might sound silly, but I love you... and you can trust me that I'll be right here when you wake up."

Scully nodded to herself, and then looked up at Mulder, who after a moment nodded, too.

"It's not silly," said Kim. "And we love you too, Monica."

She met my eyes and didn't smile, but gave me one of the most serious, meaningful, trustworthy looks I'd ever seen. It completely solidified everything I had thought earlier about our friendship growing. There was a spirit among us. It wasn't an alliance based on tragedy. We had truly linked together in some way, in a way that was too strong for words. And I think that's why nothing else needed to be said. Dana squeezed my hand in return, and then let Mulder draw her closer. Ten minutes later, John and I were the only ones left awake.

*

Conversation was out of the question. Not only would it wake our sleeping friends, but we didn't have much to talk about, anyway. After they all fell asleep, John and I looked at each other, wondering how we were going to fill in the time.

After an hour or so, John dropped a few fingers in to the thin layer of dirt, dust and snow on the floor and drew up a board of tic tac toe. I smiled. He drew a cross in the middle and pulled his hand back, indicating for me to have a turn.

I drew a circle in the top left corner and then pulled my hand back, grinning. To pass the time, John sat back for a few seconds, taking his time to strategise. It only made me smile more. We were stuck in the mountains after a plane crash, trapped by a blizzard, and John and I were sitting playing a child's game, as though it was a normal everyday situation.

We played for twenty minutes before something happened. John had just won for what must have been the thousandth time, and I was considering whispering some suggested rules for making the game more complicated when Dana started tossing and turning in her sleep.

I looked over at her. She was still next to me, and within easy reach. She had rolled away a little from Mulder, though. They were no longer holding each other as they had been at the beginning.

Her head started shaking from side to side, and she was opening and closing her mouth as if she was talking, but no words came out.

"Nightmare," I whispered to John.

We abandoned our game to pay closer attention to her. John came around to sit near her as well, down by her knees. I shifted myself a little closer to sit by her side. It didn't seem bad enough to justify waking her, so I just settled a hand on her shoulder.

"You're fine, Dana," I said.

She continued to toss and turn, her movements only getting more violent and panicky.

"Dana, you're ok," said John, very lightly resting his hand on hers. "It's just a dream."

Still she didn't calm. We continued to whisper reassurances to her, and to gently touch her, but it made no difference. She only became more distressed. The coats that were lying on top of her were thrown aside by her movements. We tried to gently cover her back up, as it was still freezing cold, but as soon as we did she only gave another gasp and turned again. It continued for about thirty seconds before she suddenly gasped so loud that she sprang up in to a sitting position, eyes wide with panic.

"Dana!" John said, catching her with a hand on each shoulder. "It's ok!"

I put an arm around her back, and we both sat, watching her trying to catch her breath. Breathing heavily, she looked first at John, then at me, Mulder, and then frantically looked past to see Kim and Skinner, who were still in deep sleep.

"They're ok," I said, reading her mind. "We're all ok. You're fine. It was just a bad dream."

She nodded mutely, staring in to space as she pulled herself together. Then she brought a hand up to her face, pushing her hair away. If it hadn't been so cold, I was sure she would have been sweating, but the only sign of moisture was in her eyes. She tried to blink it back as she looked at us.

"It was the crash," she said. "I saw the whole thing. Except this time it was different." She looked like she wanted to say more, but she trailed off, her eyes becoming even more tearful as she re-lived whatever horror she had seen.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You were gone. Everyone. We crashed, and everyone was screaming. Blood everywhere. It was exactly how it happened, except that when I got up, you were all gone. I was the only one who wasn't hurt." She paused. "Everyone was dead."

John and I said nothing. We understood how she felt.

"You were looking at me. With those terrified eyes. I tried to help, but as soon as I found my feet, I was alone. There was just silence..." she shook her head. "It was so creepy."

"It's your mind playing tricks on you," said John, squeezing her shoulder sympathetically. "We're all scared. None of us wants to be alone up here. But it was just a dream, Dana. We're all here. All breathing."

I rubbed her back. "Is that why you didn't sleep earlier? This isn't the first time you've had that nightmare, is it?"

She nodded. "I had it last night, too. It just keeps getting worse."

Of course. I hadn't noticed because that had been after Brad's death. I had slept through the entire night in John's arms. John wouldn't have noticed then, either.

I wanted her to go back to sleep, but I also knew that she would not want to. I didn't blame her. If I had had that dream, sleep wouldn't be appealing to me, either. All we could do was reassure her that we were always right there beside her, alive.

Like so many other times since the crash, John was reading my mind. "Here, Dana, lean back."

She leant back against the wall of the plane, still with my arm around her, and John covered her with the clothing again.

"You gotta keep warm," he said. Then he looked up to her face. "Close your eyes."

"Don't ask me to sleep, John," she said firmly. "I'm not tired."

He came around and sat on her other side. "Don't give me that crap, Dana. You're so tired you've forgotten how to sleep. Anyway, I wasn't asking you to sleep. I asked you to close your eyes."

"Why?" she asked. "What's the point of closing my eyes if I'm awake? Just for fun?"

I tried to bite back a smile when John rolled his eyes. "Just do it, will ya?"

She gave him a look but then sighed and closed them.

John, leaning against the wall next to her, started talking softly, leaning in so that only Dana and I could hear him. "Once upon a time, in a land far, far away with no aliens in it, there was a young girl. Her name, if you'll believe it, was Cinderella."

Dana's eyes popped open. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Don't you think I'm a little old for that?"

"Never too old for a story, Dana. Anyway, look around. We're never going to have a better time for a fairy tale."

"I heard this one," she said.

"Not the way I tell it," was John's reply. "And when did I say you could open your eyes?"

She shut them again, but not before giving John another evil look.

"Anyway, she had these two sisters, who were real ugly. And I mean ugly. They had faces like Kersh's backside..."

John continued with his interesting, and less than accurate, version of Cinderella, but before we even got the ending, Dana had fallen asleep against my shoulder.

We didn't move. I knew exactly how Dana felt with her nightmares. Her fear of being alone was understood by all of us. So having her sleep against me didn't bother me at all. If having her know that we were both beside her the whole time helped, then we were willing to make that sacrifice. The rest of the night passed in silence with John and I supporting her.

*

We didn't know the difference between day and night any more. There was no light to judge by. But I do know that it was hours before anyone woke. Possibly some of the most boring hours of my life. Nothing at all happened. Everyone slept on, perfectly fine, and there were no sounds of another avalanche.

Kim woke first, followed shortly by Skinner and Mulder. Mulder was surprised that Dana was asleep between us, and not with him, but I explained it to him in a whispered conversation and he understood. Truthfully, my arm and shoulder were aching from Scully leaning on me, but I was not going to complain, or move her. Not when she was finally getting the sleep she needed.

Most of the activity of the day was completed by Kim, Skinner and Mulder. John and I would have liked to help, but we couldn't move.

After waking, they turned their attention to digging out from our cave and seeing the weather outside. They did this in the pilot's cabin. We listened to them pulled aside glass and snow for nearly ten minutes before Kim ducked back in to whisper to us that they had been successful, that the blizzards had stopped and the sky was overcast, but still we could go outside.

Kim and Skinner went out for a walk around, to stretch their legs and get some fresh air. Mulder came to us for a whispered conversation.

"We have a problem," he said, kneeling at Scully's feet.

We waited for him to explain. I wanted to use as few words as possible so as to not wake Scully.

"The snow from the blizzards has buried the bodies. We'll have to dig for them. We need to... do the same thing we did yesterday. We need to keep our strength up, but we don't know exactly where those bodies were, how deep they are."

"Well we don't have a choice," I said. "We'll have to look until we find them, and hopefully that'll be before the next storm hits. Let's take advantage of this break in the weather to do it while we can."

"Thing is, I don't think Kim and Skinner are going to be willing to help, and I don't know if I'll be able to find them in time on my own," said Mulder.

"I'll come," said John. He started to very carefully pull away from Scully.

I was considering helping, too, but Mulder stopped me. "I thought... maybe you should stay. Scully hasn't slept the last few nights, and since she seems to be now..."

He was looking at her so lovingly that I didn't hesitate to stay. Mulder and John would be able to find the bodies on their own. If I could dig through an avalanche with a one minute time limit, I'm sure John and Mulder could find sixteen bodies within an hour.

*

It seemed that our soft conversation had gradually drawn her out of sleep, because a few minutes after they left, Scully woke.

She spent a few seconds remembering where she was, and then she snapped around at me, realising that she was still leaning on me.

"Oh my God, Monica, I'm so sorry," she said. "I wasn't leaning on you all night, was I?"

I couldn't bring myself to lie, but she looked so guilty that telling the truth wasn't appealing, either. "It doesn't matter. I hardly noticed."

I got to my feet and stretched, intending to go and help Mulder and John.

"Mulder and John are outside, they're going to dig for the bodies," I said. I didn't need to tell her why. She looked down at the floor as soon as I said it, remembering what we had done the day before.

"Where are Skinner and Kim?" she asked.

"They're outside, too," I said. "Though I doubt they're out there to help."

She sighed. "I hate this."

"They'll come round," I said. "It's the sixth day now. They'll give in soon."

She nodded and grudgingly we started to make our way to the pilot's cabin, to climb out through the new hole in the window and emerge on the new snow to help with the graveyard dig.

*

"I can't believe I'm seeing this."

We had found the body that we had taken from before, and now we were all standing around, looking at it, and wishing for the strength to continue what we were doing. Kim was standing off to the side, with Skinner, and her criticisms weren't helping.

"We've been through this. We have to," said John.

"Kim," I said, walking over to her. "Please give it a go. Yes, it's awful, but it's survival. We still have a day or more of blizzards to go. You have to eat. We need you to eat."

She studied my face, and looked as though she wanted to give in to my plea, but then she shook her head. "I don't hate you for it. You have the strength to do it, and that's great. But I can't. I don't care what happens. I can't bring myself to do that."

"Just give it a go," I said. "Don't think about it."

She looked away from me and back to the body. Scully was kneeling there with the knife in her hand.

"Come on, Kim," said Scully. "You're a part of our team. You can do this." She looked to Skinner. "You both can. You don't have to like it. You can hate it as much as you want. Just do it."

Scully turned her back on them, and stuck the knife in to the skin, beginning to cut. Everyone but her looked away. When she finished, she passed a piece to Mulder, to John and then turned to me, where I was standing with Kim and Skinner.

"Monica," she said, holding it out.

John threw a bottle of water across for me and I caught it with both hands before accepting the 'food' from Scully. Like last time, I had the water ready before I put the piece in my mouth. It need to be chewed a little, and I spent a few hurried seconds trying to soften it up, but then it came to a number of smaller pieces and I was able to swallow, throwing down the water after it.

Scully held out a piece to us again, waiting for Skinner or Kim to take it.

It was Skinner who moved. He came forward and slowly took it from her, turning it over in his fingers for a few seconds, before turning to me to get the water. I passed it to him, and he spent a few more seconds contemplating it.

"Just do it," I said. "It doesn't make you evil. It won't make you a monster."

I don't know if he even heard me. But then he slipped it in between his lips and shut his eyes tight, as if unable to bear seeing anyone look at him. We did anyway, and then he was drinking the water. He pulled the bottle away and bent over, putting his hands on his knees and taking deep breaths.

As I reached out to put a hand on his back, a few snowflakes fell on to me.

"It's starting to snow," said Kim, looking all around her.

There was a whistle of wind and Scully's hair started blowing around. Everyone had eaten except Kim, and Scully waved for her to come closer. "Come on, Kim. This could be another blizzard coming. We'd better hurry up."

Kim didn't move. In the end, Skinner stood up and walked over to her side, casually putting an arm around her and walking her forward. "You'll be fine. We're all in this together. Think of it as survival. If you eat, then we can walk out of here."

I wasn't sure that was the best thing to say. Saying to Kim that if she didn't eat, then we would all die was putting a little too much pressure on her. Pressure which would rebound if we weren't careful. But a few tears appeared in her eyes and she silently reached for the water and then for the piece of meat from Scully.

"I'm already responsible for Holly's death," she said. "I'm not going to be responsible for yours, too."

And with those words, she put the flesh in her mouth.

*

"Sleep."

Dana stared in to my eyes, but I only looked away.

"I feel fine," I said.

"Monica, you and John have been up nearly all night. You told us to sleep, now we're telling you. This isn't a one way friendship."

"We're fine, Dana," said John. "We'll sleep later tonight."

"Please," she said.

That stopped me with my mouth half open. I could resist as long as she was trying to order us, but to say no when she was asking us like that was wrong. And maybe she had a point. It was fair for her to ask us to sleep when we weren't tired, when we had asked the same thing of everyone else hours before.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Of course," she replied. "You won't miss anything except for the thrilling sounds of this blizzard. And like you said last night, we'll wake you if anything happens."

I glanced at John and we nodded to each other, then moved over to a corner by ourselves, lying down and covering ourselves with blankets and coats. It wasn't that long to sunset, anyway. I knew we would wake sometime early morning, but then we could take over from the others and let them get some sleep. It was fair, overall.

*  
DAY SEVEN

The seventh day was uneventful, to the point of being one of the most forgettable days of the whole experience. I slept much longer than I had intended to, and I woke early morning to see that Mulder and Scully had heroically been up all night, watching us. That was when I understood the guilt Scully had felt leaning on me in her own sleep. So I apologised, and then apologised a few times more, and then after forcing myself to use our chamber pot, I returned only to discover that Mulder and Kim wanted to have another group conference.

The blizzard was still outside, in full force, so I sat down under our 'blankets' with John, feeling that I might as well listen to what they had been thinking. Mulder had had all night to think, and by the sound of it, Kim had had a fair share of it, too.

"I want to get out of here," said Kim, holding the radio.

"I think we all agree on that," said John bluntly. He hadn't fully woken up yet. I was used to the early morning, grumpy John, but not everyone else was. Surprisingly, though, Kim just shrugged it off and got straight to the point.

"I think it's time we started to think about it," she said. She exchanged a look with Mulder. Obviously they must have already developed plans and were just waiting for us to wake up to let us know what they wanted to do.

"What did you have in mind?" I asked, jumping in before John could say anything else.

Kim took a deep breath. "I caught another news report a few hours ago. There's something you need to know..."

Kim stopped, not even able to bring herself to tell us what it was. She looked at Mulder and Scully for help, and they shared a sad look back at her. Whatever it was, I wasn't too keen on hearing it.

Mulder eventually stepped in. "It's like Follmer said. They can only search for so long. It's the seventh day now. They've scaled down the search. They don't have much hope for finding us."

"Don't have much hope?" said John. "That sounds to me like they've given up."

Mulder nodded. "You could put it like that, yeah."

John swore under his breath. I wasn't far behind him.

"So what do we do now?" asked Skinner.

"Well," began Dana, and took a deep breath, "we uh... walk out of here."

She had to be kidding. "There's a blizzard outside. And you saw those mountains! Do you really think... I mean, that's crazy..."

"You've worked on the X-Files, you should be used to crazy ideas," said Mulder, in a courageous effort to lighten the mood.

"Yes, but this is the first one that's threatened my life," I said. It was half true. It had more potential to kill me than anything before. It was the scariest one.

"So what's the plan? We just pack up and leave?" asked John.

"Not quite," said Dana. "We actually thought it would be better if we sent two people. It would be faster that way, and they could walk out and get help for the rest of us. It's less risk."

Less risk? She was talking about it so logically that I felt sick. I would rather go with everyone and risk death together than sit back and watch two others go, watching a blizzard approaching and knowing they were doomed.

"Why don't we all go together? Why just have two?" I asked.

"Because if someone misjudges the right time to leave, then only two people are affected. If we all die, then they'll never find the crash site up here. Those families need to know what happened. They need those bodies back."

That was another problem. Someone wasn't going to get a body back like they would be hoping for. How were we going to explain that? And that was only one of many problems. Holly and Brad were two more. We couldn't possibly talk our way out of everything.

"Maybe it's best they don't," said John, but only so I could hear him.

"We've been talking about it all night," said Kim. "We all think it's the best thing to do."

"So that's it? You're asking us to just go along with it?" John said. I could feel his anger rising. I wasn't too happy about having everything decided for me, either. But there was one more piece of information I wanted before I said anything I could regret.

"We're hoping you'll see the sense in it," said Kim.

I looked to Scully. "If you've already talked about it, then you must already have some idea of who will be going."

"I vote for whoever was crazy enough to suggest it," said John, with all the delicate tact he usually reserved for responding to a theory of mine.

"Well, good, because that's the way it's turned out," said Dana. She looked across at Kim. "Kim and Skinner volunteered."

Kim nodded. "We thought we'd leave as soon as the weather breaks."

I gaped. That was not what I was expecting. I had been expecting Mulder and Scully. Maybe Kim, but definitely not Skinner. Skinner was the oldest among us, it made more sense for someone who was younger to go in his place.

"Kim and Skinner," repeated John. He looked back to Scully. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Hey!" said Kim, and she turned on John. "I'm just as fit as any of you, if not more. Don't forget that it was my idea to walk up that mountain peak. No one would have ever done it if I hadn't suggested it. And let me remind you, that you and Mulder whinged and whined all the way to the top."

She did have a point, there. We all knew how fit, and stubborn, Kim was. She had shown that to us not only on her hike up the mountain, but during her reaction to Holly's death, where we spent nearly half an hour chasing her. Kim was not the one I was worried about.

"And what about you?" I asked, looking at Skinner. "You're okay with this?"

"I've done my fair share of hiking," said Skinner. "Most of it was during wartime. Should be easy."

"I still don't get it," said John, turning back to Mulder. "It was partly your idea. You two are fit and healthy. Why can't you go?"

"We can't," said Scully. But she didn't offer a reason.

There was something about the awkward look in her eyes that worried me. There was something she wasn't telling us.

"What do you mean? What's wrong?" I asked, gently.

She looked to Mulder, who shrugged, giving her permission.

"Mulder's not well. He was sick on and off all night." She looked at him sympathetically. "I think he should stay here."

So that was why we were sending only two people. And looking at Mulder, I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before. He was pale, and looked weak. His positive attitude and efforts to be light about the whole conversation had concealed it, but I could tell that underneath he had been feeling quite sick. And there were no prizes for guessing what had caused it.

"Oh," said John, all his anger forgotten. "Well that's okay then."

Then, in his efforts to be kind to Mulder he said something which made me cringe slightly.

"If you want, Monica and I'll go. We can handle it. You stay here, and we'll bring back help."

"But you don't want to go," said Kim. "I don't want you going if you don't want to, and aren't prepared for it. Skinner and I are ready. We've thought out the whole thing. We're both fit enough, and we aren't stupid. We won't take any more risks than we have to."

"And you're absolutely sure?" I asked, turning back to her.

"Positive," she said.

"Okay then," I said, nodding. "I suppose we don't have much of a choice."

"That's right, we don't," she said. She got to her feet and pulled her bag toward her. "I'm going to start packing."

*

DAY EIGHT

After our settlement that Kim and Skinner were the ones to go, we had spent an hour preparing. We gave them the best bags, all the warmest clothes, bottles of water, the lighter, and were planning to give them some food once the blizzard calmed enough for us to get it. The afternoon had been spent sleeping and talking. It was stories, mostly. Stories about family. We were all missing our families, and talking about them helped ease some of the pain.

It turned out that Mulder had had diarrhoea. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but when it stopped, he wanted to do nothing more than lie down and rest. We let him sleep. I could tell Dana was worried about him. She wouldn't leave his side. The thing that worried me was that it could happen to all of us, and what if it happened to Skinner or Kim while they were out there? It was a possibility. A frightening one. But Kim was still determined to be positive about the whole affair, and I had no reason to want to scare her by mentioning it.

I climbed out through the glass with John. The sight of blue sky was both exciting and terrifying. I knew that Kim and Skinner would not delay. It was the best weather we had seen so far. There were clouds, but they were only patchy. It was not threatening. And sure enough, the moment they emerged behind us, they didn't hesitate to suggest it.

"This is it," said Kim. "We have to go. We can't hang around any longer."

Mulder was a little better. He came out with Scully and they wandered over to the bodies.

"You can't go yet," I said. "You have to take some stuff with you." They knew I meant food, but I couldn't bring myself to say it Referring to the dead agents as food seemed too cold, but there was no other ideal word, either.

Scully already had the knife and she set to work, while Skinner ducked back inside the plane to collect the backpacks they had prepared for the journey. He crossed to Kim and gave one to her, and she hoisted it over her shoulders.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?" I asked. "You can back out right now if you want."

I wanted to give them both an opportunity, just in case they were not as ready as they had both thought they were the day before. To sit in the plane and talk about it was one thing, but to actually get up and leave your friends, to hike in to miles and miles of snow-  
covered landscape, knowing a blizzard could strike any time, wasn't easy. It took a lot of strength. And not only for them, but for us, too. We had to watch them go. We had no way of communicating with them once they went. We could only wait and hope. I hadn't known either of them that well before the crash, but during the last seven days I had grown to love them. And to split just when we had all formed such a strong bond was heart-breaking.

"I'm sure," said Kim. "I want us to all get out of here."

"I can't handle sitting around any longer," said Skinner. "We'll be fine. We'll take it easy."

There was silence as Scully came back. She handed a small bag of meat to Kim. Kim went a shade or two paler when she glanced inside, but she quickly recovered and looked to Scully.

"Are you sure this is all edible?"

"Yes," said Dana. "And there's enough there for both of you, for ten days. Hopefully that will give you enough time to... reach somewhere."

She then took another small bag from Mulder and handed it across to Skinner. "Take this, too. It's a few first aid items. It's very basic. Hopefully you won't need them."

Skinner nodded. "What about you? Will you be all right back here?"

"We'll be fine," she said.

"Don't worry about us," I said. "Just look after yourselves."

Skinner nodded and then swung his back off his shoulders to put in the first aid kit. Kim put the meat in hers, and then they both put their bags back on, and looked at us with suddenly sad expressions, knowing that the time had come to part.

Kim was the first to move. Struggling to hold back tears, she came toward me and hugged me. I hugged her back.

"You'll be fine," I said softly in to her ear.

We let go and then she crossed and hugged John, Scully and Mulder. Skinner did the same, with less tears than Kim, but with no less fear in his eyes. I tried to hold back my own tears, but after Kim hugged me, I was failing. Kim and Skinner were leaving. They were going on a hike, for which Scully had prepared for up to ten days for. The weather wasn't likely to hold that long. But then, hopefully they wouldn't need that much time. Hopefully the good weather would stretch until they reached lower ground and, if they were lucky, a town, or some kind of sign of civilisation. But no matter how I looked at it, it all seemed too high risk. I knew we had no choice. We couldn't stay on the mountain forever. But to watch two of my friends risk their lives for us was still heart-  
breaking.

"We uh... we'd better be going," said Kim. She pointed up to a mountain. "We're going to go up the mountain first, to get a good view of the area, and to pick a route."

Teary-eyed, they turned to leave, but John shouted out. "Wait a minute!"

We all waited while John ducked back inside and came out with the radio. He held it out for Kim. "Take this. Maybe you might be able to catch some weather reports."

"You might need it," said Kim, trying to hand it back to him.

"You'll need it more," he said.

She nodded and then took John in another hug. "Thank you, John."

After a second they pulled away, and with a sad goodbye, they both turned and started their walk off to the mountain peak.

I stood with Dana, John and Mulder, watching them disappear in to the distance.

"Let's hope they make it," I said.

"They will," said Scully. "They have to."

*

Suddenly we had nothing to do but wait. There were no plans to make. There was no more speculation, or what ifs, there was just time, and waiting for Skinner and Kim to reach civilisation. We sat back in the plane, and to fill in the time we started talking. We talked about everything, but the most dominant topics were food and family.

Scully and Mulder were in talkative moods, and they spent hours talking to us about past cases of the X-Files, and about the sad history of their families. I had never quite realised how much pain they each had in their pasts, but that was probably because we had never before had the time to sit down and talk. We talked all the time about cases, theories and science, but never sat down and got to know each other.

Scully was talking us through her family tree when it happened. She had finished a debate with Mulder about her older brother, Bill, and was progressing to his son, and her nephew, Matthew.

"He starts school soon," she said. "The time has flown."

"Is he an only child?" I asked, drawing out a mental map of her family tree as she talked.

"No, Tara's pregnant again. She's six months along. They don't know the sex yet. They tell me they don't care if it's a boy or a girl, but I know Tara wants -"

"Scully," said Mulder suddenly, putting his hand out to stop her, exactly as I had before the avalanche.

All my senses went on full alert, and that's when it happened. A rise in the wind. It had the sound of an approaching blizzard. Kim and Skinner had only been gone an hour.

"Oh, no," said John, straightening up to hear better. "Hell no..."

I jumped to my feet and ran through the door to the pilot's cabin. I climbed up through the glass and out on to the snow. It was coming down so thick and fast. They didn't have a chance. They would be halfway up the mountain by now. They would have had no time to find shelter, and it was unlikely they would have been expecting it.

John emerged at my side and he put his arms around me, trying to pull me back down in to the plane. "You'll freeze out here! We have to go! Now!"

I was so cold that I turned around and followed. There was nothing we could achieve by standing there. Kim and Skinner would be far away. We could only hope they had shelter.

"We should have checked the weather forecast," said John, letting himself fall on to the floor against the wall. "We were so stupid. Why didn't we check it?"

"We did," said Scully. "She checked while you were asleep. But it changes so rapidly up here..."

"What are we going to do?" I asked. "We can't leave them out there."

"I can't see anything we can do," said Mulder. "We go out there and we'll freeze. What happens if you freeze to death and for no reason? They might have found shelter somewhere. They were out there, they might have known a blizzard was coming and had time to get out of its way."

"Might," said John, swallowing hard. "That's not very encouraging."

"Let's just wait," said Scully. "Wait and pray that it doesn't last long."

"That's it?" said John. "We just wait to see if they lived or died?"

"How will we know, anyway?" I asked. "What if something happens to them, how will we know? Are we going to just wait the ten days, and just hope?"

"They were gone an hour," said Mulder. "How far do you think they could have gone?"

I shrugged. "A few miles."

"They wouldn't have reached the mountain top," said John. "That took us more than an hour to climb last time."

But I was a step ahead of them. "Well it seems logical that Kim would have taken the same track she took last time. We know the way. What if we go up there when the blizzard stops? Just to make sure?"

"If we do that, we risk getting caught in one ourselves," said Scully. "They're depending on us to survive just as much as we're depending on them."

"We won't if we're careful," I said. "We'll keep an eye on the weather as we're walking. Any sign of trouble and we turn back straightaway. Everything's a risk up here. Wouldn't you rather know?"

Scully nodded, but John was staring at me.

"What do you hope to find, Monica? What do you hope to achieve by walking up there?"

"Hopefully nothing," I said. "If we see no sign of them, then we say they must have gone on once the blizzard stopped. If we do find them, well... then at least we'll know for sure."

There was a short silence following my words. We were all working out the odds in our minds, trying to estimate how far they would have walked, and whether there would have been any shelter for them. I don't know about the others, but my conclusions were frightening, and I felt a knot form in my heart. It was the same type of knot that had formed when I heard Brad's gun fire.

"They might be all right," said Mulder. "Maybe they saw it coming and are on their way back now."

I kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to remind them that they would not be able to see in the snow. They would have no idea which direction to walk in. And even if they guessed, and somehow dealt with the cold, it was still so easily to miss the plane. Our only hope was that they found shelter. I dug up every scrap of detail about our hike up that mountain that day. What scared me was that I could not recall any place to take shelter. There were rocks in places, but no trees of any kind. I couldn't think of anything they could have used.

"Let's not jump to conclusions," said Scully. Which wasn't comforting when I noticed how white she was. "We'll wait for now. And if they don't show up, when the blizzard stops, we'll walk up there. Ok?"

We were so scared for them that we all instantly agreed. Even if walking up there killed us, it was better than sitting and waiting, like we were doing now. We had spent eight days sitting and waiting. I'd had enough of it.

*  
THE EIGHTH NIGHT

It was after dark before we left. The snow had stopped, and the sky was clear enough to give us some confidence that we would have time to get there and back safely.

Mulder was still wasn't well and when he tried to get up with me and John Scully put a hand out. "You don't have to come, Mulder. You can stay here."

Mulder rolled his eyes and pushed her hand away. "I want to know what's happened to them just as much as you do, and I'll die out there before I stay here by myself."

We didn't question that. We could all imagine the horror of being alone. It was something I had thought about since Dana told us about her nightmares. Sanity depended on the company of others, and knowing that you would all be together if tragedy struck again. But I knew that if I were by myself, I would go insane within a couple of hours. We needed to balance each other out, and to recognise when the others were being illogical or making wrong decisions. We needed that force of everyone looking after everyone else, or we were doomed. So I wasn't surprised when Mulder wanted to come with us.

We were standing out in the snow, gazing out at the mountain that we were about to climb. It was dark now, and in the moonlight I could just make out its shape, with its dangerous slopes and rocky cliffs. The knot tightened.

"Do we have everything?" asked John, trying to hide the fact that he was stuffing something inside his jacket. I decided I wasn't going to ask what it was. He was keen to get going, and I couldn't blame him. It was best to make the most of the fine weather. It could change so quickly.

"I think so," I said, looking around at everyone. We were all wearing warm clothes, the best shoes we had, all had a flashlight, and John and Scully each had a bottle of water.

"Then let's go," said Scully.

And then we were off. We didn't set off at such a frantic pace as we did when we were chasing Kim. We didn't want to exhaust ourselves. It was only a one hour hike, and we deliberately went at the same, easy, casual speed that Skinner and Kim had used. That way, after an hour, we were likely to find ourselves in the same territory they had. Or so the theory went.

"It's freezing out here," John complained, jiggling around in a strange kind of warm-up dance as we went.

"Surprise, surprise," said Mulder, with his usual dry sarcasm.

"It's colder at night," said Scully. "We've probably picked the worst time to be doing this."

"They would have had to sleep out here," I said, looking around at the endless snow. It was bad enough sleeping in the plane. Sleeping in the open wasn't something I wanted to consider.

"Don't use the past tense, Monica," said John, still jumping around. "It scares me."

We stopped talking as we carefully went over some rocks, and then down a slope to the plain that led to the mountain. We didn't address John's statement. His fear of finding Kim and Skinner dead was shared by everyone. It was the reason we had set out on the hike in the first place.

"Is anyone watching the time?" I asked. My mind had set on an image of Kim and Skinner dead, their eyes wide and skin drained of all colour. I wanted to change the subject.

"We've been gone..." Mulder pulled a watch out of his pocket and shone the flashlight on it to read, "...nearly ten minutes."

"More importantly," said John, "Is anyone keeping track of where we're walking? The plane is covered in snow. We're going to need something to find our way back with."

"I've thought of that," said Mulder. "We're just behind that set of rocks."

He pointed to the rocks which we had just climbed over and we nodded. They were in a good position. We would be able to see them from far away, in clear weather, and we should be able to find our way back to them easy enough.

Whether Kim and Skinner would ever see them again was another thing entirely.

*

When Mulder called an hour, we were halfway up the mountain. It wasn't too steep, but it was steep enough to make me wonder what they would have done. There were rocks everywhere, and that only made things more dangerous for them. If they had been caught here in a blizzard, they wouldn't have been able to watch where they were walking.

We all stood there, shining around our flashlights, trying to see anything that would give us a clue. But as far as I could see, there was nothing.

"Okay," I said, glancing up at the still clear sky. "We should have enough time to look around. Let's split up and meet back here in ten minutes."

They agreed, and we all took different directions. I headed straight for the rocks. If I had been in a blizzard, that would have been one of the first possibilities I would have investigated for shelter.

As I began my search, I began to see how pointless it all was. The problem was, I wasn't sure what I was looking for. All I could think of was that if I found nothing, then that was good because then they must have survived and moved on with their hike. They could be far away by now. But even with the thick layer of snow, even if something had happened, I didn't know if I would find them...

I was always listening for shouts from the others, a shout that would tell me they had found something. But none came, and as time crawled on I was getting the feeling that we would all meet back with nothing to report.

As I continued to walk around the mountain, I came to a section of rock that fell sharply downward on a 45 degree angle, where it was shortly met by a cliff of rock at the end. I debated going back to find the others, as our time was nearly up, but there was something about this rock that was drawing me nearer. I can't explain it. It was some kind of force. I had some kind of sense that there was something there.

It was hard to see in the low light, so I shone the flashlight around the snow, looking for anything unusual. I didn't dare step too close to the edge of the slope. There was no doubt it would be slippery, and incredibly dangerous. At the base of the valley formed by the cliff was piles of snow, and I didn't know how deep it was. If I fell down there, there was a good chance I'd never get out.

I stood a few feet away from the edge, shining the beam along the rock. There was nothing. Disappointed that my feeling had been wrong, I sighed and turned back to head back to the others.

I had only taken two steps when I froze again.

Ahead, where the snow should have been flat, was a mound. I went for a closer look. It could have been a rock, of course, but I knew the moment I saw it that it wasn't. There was something too unnatural about it. It didn't add up.

Shaking, I held the flashlight with one hand and I reached toward it with my other, holding my breath as I went to brush away some of the snow.

Most of it was soft, but just as I was about to turn away my hand came in to contact with something hard.

I brushed away a little more and every muscle in my body froze. It was clothing. A piece of clothing Skinner had wrapped over his head.

He was dead.

*

After a minute of staring in shock, I realised I'd have to call for the others.

"Agent Doggett!" I shouted. "Agent Scully!"

I didn't have any breath left to shout for Mulder, but if I'd called for the others, he'd know he would have to come, too.

I didn't call again, but stood with the body, trying not to look down at him. A minute or two later, John came hurrying over a slope with Scully and Mulder a few feet behind.

"Monica! Are you all right? I heard shouting..." John called.

I took a few steps to the side, letting them get a perfect view of Skinner.

They stopped in their tracks.

"Oh, shit..." said John, staring at the frozen body.

Scully and Mulder seemed incapable of forming speech. They spent a minute doing what I had, just staring at the body and trying to come to terms with what must have happened. Then they slowly forced themselves in to action, Scully coming forward to kneel in front of his body, and Mulder and John coming to stand with us.

"Where's Kim?" asked Mulder, looking slowly around the landscape.

"I don't know," I said. "I only found Skinner."

John tore his eyes away from Skinner. "Do you think she went on? You know, continued with the hike?"

"No," I said. "She couldn't go on by herself. If she went anywhere, it would have been back to us."

"Well then where is she?" said John, looking around the snow with Mulder.

"She has to be around here somewhere," said Mulder. "Let's split up and have another look."

Scully stood up to join us. "I don't think he's been gone long. And if he was stopped by the weather, then she must have been too. She has to be here."

We all walked around the snow, but the further I walked, the more puzzled I became. The rest of the snow was even. There was no more mounds, not even a rock. Nothing. She couldn't have walked off. I know that if I had been in her place, I could not have walked on after seeing my friend die. And by then, she must have been in a bad state, herself. It made sense that she was here, so why couldn't we find her?

John came to my side. "You know what I'm thinking? What if Kim died first? What if something happened to her elsewhere, and he was on his way back to us? She might not be around this area at all."

That didn't quite add up to me. "John, put yourself in his place. You've watched a very good friend die, and you're feeling like you're about to freeze yourself. Are you more likely to stay with her or to decide to leave for a one hour hike back to camp, which, by the way, you won't be able to find anyway?"

John shrugged. "I don't know what I'd do."

I was considering the thought when Mulder interrupted. "Agent Doggett! Reyes!"

We turned and started to head in the direction of his voice. We'd walked further than we had intended to. I was in no hurry. That shout sounded like it meant he had found Kim. If he had found Kim, then she was dead, too. They would both be dead, and our mission to hike out of the mountains had failed in the worst way. I stopped the guilt before it had a chance to form. Later. We didn't even know for sure yet.

We found Mulder standing by the steep rocks, which descended to the cliff. He was standing there thoughtfully with Scully, walking along the edge and looking down in to the snow pit below.

They turned to face us.

"I've been thinking," said Mulder, still walking along the edge, "what if she fell?"

"You think that's possible?" asked John sceptically. "She's not stupid."

"Don't forget there was a blizzard," said Scully. "It would have been hard to see. She could have slipped on the rocks, slid down there and uh... well, you know..."

Something in Mulder's face alarmed me. "You're not planning on climbing down there, are you?"

"Not yet," said Mulder. "It's too dangerous without any safety equipment. We could find ourselves in the same mess that she's in."

John unzipped his jacket and awkwardly approached us. I suddenly understood what it had been that John had snuck in there earlier.

"I brought this," he said. "Figured we might be needing it."

He handed a long rope to Mulder.

Scully gave John one of her looks. "You were predicting an event like this?"

"No," he said. "Just that we're climbing one of the highest mountains in the country. Seemed logical to me to take a rope, just like it seemed logical to you to bring first aid equipment."

Scully looked away. I hadn't even known that she was carrying any first aid items, and I had no idea how John did. But by the look on her face, he was definitely right. I wasn't going to criticise them for it. It made perfect sense. So much sense that I was wondering why I hadn't thought of it myself. Guess my mind was so focused on Kim and Skinner that I hadn't thought of things like that.

John stared down at the steep slope and the snow at the bottom. It wouldn't be a long climb, it would just be a dangerous one. It would have only been about fifteen or twenty feet.

"Well, who wants to be the lucky one to go down?" he asked, with a tone that said there was no way he was going to do it.

"Scully," said Mulder. "She's the lightest."

Scully was still peering down the slope at the snow below, but then she turned back to us, took a deep breath and nodded. "It can't be that hard."

Mulder took the rope from John and tied it around Scully's waist. When they were both happy with it, Mulder stood next to John and they both held on to the rope. I stood at the edge with Scully, ready to give her any help she needed.

"Just walk straight back," I said, holding out a hand for her. She took it, and put her other on the rope.

She took a hesitant step out, and when she saw that she wasn't going to fall aimlessly to the rocks below, she squeezed my hand and let go.

Scully might not have been worried, but for the rest of us, it was a terrifying few minutes. There was one point halfway down where her foot slipped, but she held on to the rope, and was soon back on track. We were all holding our breath the whole time. John and Mulder had their hands firmly on the other end of the rope, ready in case she fell. We only relaxed when her feet finally hit the snow below, and she sank in to it, waist-deep.

"You all right, Dana?" called John.

She took a second to find her footing, but then she was steady. "Fine!"

We watched as she started searching through the snow for Kim. As she went on, I was starting to become convinced she would have frostbite before she found anything.

John was thinking the same thing. "Think we should stop?"

"No," said Mulder. "We came up here for answers, and we still need to know what happened. We can't decide our next move until we know what happened to her."

"That's true," I said, "but we don't want Scully to get sick, either." She was waist-deep in the snow, and in places it was up to her chest. Her clothes were sure to be soaked through by now.

John nodded thoughtfully, then he turned back to me. I knew what he was going to say before he even said it. "Monica, maybe we should speed things up a bit. Would you be willing to-"

"Sure," I said, already nodding.

"Okay," said Mulder, and he called down to Scully. "Hey, Scully!"

She stopped and looked back up at us.

"Untie the rope, Monica's coming down!"

The knot had been tied so well that it took her nearly a minute before she had untied it. Then she threw the rope aside and Mulder pulled it up. John took the end and came and tied it around me, then they stepped back and I went to the edge, forcing my pulse to calm as I put both hands firmly on the rope.

"You'll be okay, Monica," said John. "Just take one step at a time."

"And don't look down," Mulder added.

Mulder's advice was a real piece of wisdom, and I tried not to look behind me. One step wrong and I would slip. I kept my eyes on John's, my mind focusing on my feet, and placing them on the rock without slipping.

It took ages, but eventually my foot hit snow again, and I felt Dana's hand on my back. She was reaching up to help me down.

"Be careful, it's deeper than it looks," she said.

She was right. The rock was hidden by the snow, and I had no idea how deep it was, but as I felt down with my feet, I could feel that there was a sudden drop of about a foot before the surface flattened out.

I put one hand on her shoulder, and she directed me where to step, and after a minute I was down safely beside her. I shouted up to John and Mulder that I was fine, and then I turned my attention to Scully and the search for Kim.

My first concern was Scully. "Dana, you're soaked. If you want, go back up and I'll finish things here."

She looked down at herself, apparently not even aware that she was wet. "Thanks, but I'm more worried about Kim right now."

I left it, knowing that in her place I would have said the same thing.

"You search down that way," she said, pointing behind me. "I'm nearly finished up here."

We parted, and I turned around, pulling my flashlight out of my jacket again and shining it around the snow, wondering where the hell I should start. There was so much of it. We could be there all night looking for Kim.

Just as I was wondering how far we'd go before we would decide to stop, fate took over. Like so many other times, things were not going as we expected them to. We didn't expect to crash, we didn't expect Holly to run off, we didn't expect Brad to kill himself, and we didn't expect this blizzard to strike.

I wasn't expecting to run in to Kim so quick.

I could not see her, but the lump against my foot was enough. It was the same kind of hardness my foot had hit when I was searching after the avalanche. It was so close to where Scully had first stepped. If she had gone in the other direction, we would have found her much faster. It didn't matter. We knew where she was now.

I took a few seconds before reaching down to uncover her. I had seen so many dead bodies lately, that I was wondering how much strength I had left. And Kim... I loved Kim so much, I didn't want it to be her, even though I knew that it had to be...

I reached down and started to move away the snow, throwing aside so much of it, digging down toward my foot. She must have fallen quite a while ago, to be buried so deep. It must have been at the beginning of the blizzard.

"Monica, have you found something?" I could hear Scully's voice coming closer. She was coming up behind me, and a second later, was at my side.

"It's Kim," I said softly.

I continued to dig, and then Kim's shoulder came in to view. Dana was paralysed beside me, and by the time she had come out of it, I had already uncovered Kim's head and chest.

I was kneeling down the snow, only faintly aware of the fact that my legs and butt were covered in snow. Dana knelt beside me and reached up to gently touch Kim's shoulders and neck.

"Broken neck," she said. "She must have slipped and fallen in the blizzard."

Instinctively, I looked upward, to the top of the rocks where Mulder and John were standing, their strong grip on the rope loosened as they stared down.

I looked back to Dana, who had sat back and was now sadly looking at Kim. "Must have been hard for Skinner. He would have stood at the top, not knowing what had happened, or what to do. That's why we found him up there."

Dana opened her mouth, but was unable to speak. Her flashlight dropped to her side, leaving Kim's body in darkness. In the low light, I could just make out tears in her eyes. I put an arm around Dana's shoulders, trying to be strong for her while inside I was having my own emotional breakdown.

As I comforted her, I tried to figure out our next move. My heart wanted to take Kim and Skinner back with us, but I couldn't figure out how. We had brought Holly back, but we had all been strong then. There was no way the four of us could take Skinner and Kim back, especially when it was a one hour walk. We could possibly tie the rope around Kim to take her back up the cliff, but there wasn't much point, and we would probably only destroy her body doing it. It felt disrespectful to drag her up a cliff on a rope. We only had one choice, and I hated it. We had to leave her there, and come back for her after we were rescued.

Dana had her head on my shoulder. She wasn't crying, but she was on the borderline. I rubbed her back.

"We have to leave her here," I said. "I can't see how we can take her back. We'll mark the spot, and come back for them after our rescue."

She didn't even acknowledge that she'd heard me. I waited a minute or two until she managed to pull herself together and then she sat back, with a hand over her mouth, staring at the body again.

I worked on the knot on the rope, still tied around my waist. When it was undone, I reached around Dana's waist, tying it around her. I didn't want to leave her in the snow any longer. We had to get her back up to the top.

"Dana," I said, putting my arm around her again. "We have to get back up the top. Can you climb back up?"

She gave a faint nod and walked to the edge of the rock. I helped her for the first few steps, and then she was out of my reach and slowly climbed the rest herself. When she neared the top, Mulder and John took an arm each and pulled her up and away from the edge. Mulder untied the rope from her, and then Scully let her head fall against his chest. John took the rope and threw it back down for me. I tied it around myself and then began to climb up. It was easier climbing up than down. I could see where I was walking, and I had the rope to pull myself up with.

A few minutes later, I was at the top, and John helped me up and together we untied the rope. Dana was standing by herself again. No one said a word. John put the rope back inside his jacket, and then we all stood around, looking down at the snow.

Finally, John said something. "We don't want to get caught out here. We'd better start heading back."

Together we turned and after one more short glance at the bodies, mainly to memorise where they were, we began the hike back to the plane.

*  
DAY NINE

No one had dry eyes that night. When we returned to the plane, we all went to sleep together, all next to each other as we had done on the night of the avalanche. I was the last to fall asleep, kept awake by my visions of what must have happened on the mountain. If Kim hadn't slipped, there was a chance they would have made it. Now, all we could do was ensure that their bodies were returned.

So we all huddled together, a mess of wet tears against the cold air, but somehow I was warm. I was in John's arms again, and I could feel Scully's back against my other side. She spent hours crying in to Mulder's chest. I was crying in to John, too. He was trying to keep the tears back, but was failing miserably. After everything that had happened, after all they had survived, the crash and the avalanche... it seemed so unfair for them to go now. We had thought we had all made it. We never expected to see another death. But here we were.

We woke after sunrise. I sat up, glad to see that we were not yet in another blizzard. The sky was cloudy, but there was a certain freedom in being able to walk outside. I didn't want to spend any more days stuck inside the plane.

We had run out of energy to talk. John was sitting inside the plane, staring blankly at the radio in his hands. Scully's eyes were red from crying, but she seemed to have run out of tears. Mulder was looking at a bottle of water in his hands, and like John seemed far away in his thoughts. It seemed that it was going to have to be me to get everyone going.

I chose a seat on top of a pile of clothing, in the middle of our little circle. I didn't look at anyone as I spoke, because looking in to their teary eyes only made me more upset myself, and there had to be a time when we took a deep breath and started thinking again. So I stared at the wall, and tried to bring my thoughts together.

"We have to decide our next move," I said. "We still have to get out of here."

There was a few seconds of silence, then John put the radio aside. "Radio is predicting blizzards today followed by a few days of clear weather. Maybe we should think about using that time."

"Radio means nothing," said Scully. "They were wrong before."

"We can't stay here forever," I said. "It's a risk no matter what we do."

John came to sit at my side. "You want to walk out of here?"

"That's right, I do," I said. "I don't see we have a choice."

"I'd be willing to go," said John. "We could go together, after this blizzard."

I was considering the thought, but Dana sat up straight with such anger that I forgot anything I was going to say. "No! You're not going together. We can't split up any more."

That was exactly what I was thinking. After everyone we had lost, there was no way I was willing to split up with Mulder and Scully. I loved John, but I loved them as well, and parting from them would be too hard.

"I agree," I said softly. "If we go anywhere, we all go together."

"It'd be safer that way, anyway," said Mulder. "Always better to go with a bigger party."

John and I were okay with the idea, and I could tell that Mulder was, but Scully was still worrying me. She had stopped crying, but still seemed weak. She wasn't her usual strong self.

I looked to her. "What do you think, Dana?"

"I think... that hard as Kim and Skinner's deaths are, we can't give up. We've come this far, we have to go on. And I know that there's a chance that we'll hit a blizzard too, but I think I'd rather take my chances out there than stay here. Out there we have some chance, here we have none."

We all nodded, absorbing her words and agreeing with them. We owed it to Kim and Skinner to get out of here. We had to make sure the others were taken care of.

"Well," said John, "If we're going to leave, we'd better start preparing. As soon as this blizzard's over, we have to be out. We can't waste any time as long as the sky's clear."

Scully pushed herself to her feet and started hunting around for the knife. I shut my mind off at the thought of what she was about to do, and what her idea of preparing was. Then, without a word, she disappeared in to the pilot's cabin and out on to the snow.

John got to his feet. "I'm going to take advantage of this nice weather to uh... admire the snow."

I smiled, amused that with John's choice of words. I knew what he meant, and so did Mulder, who followed him out, keeping in line with our unofficial rule.

I had dug out some bags appropriate for the hike and was sorting through all the clothing when I heard the familiar whistle of the wind. Seconds later, Scully came thumping down in to the pilot's cabin and she ran in to me, grabbing my upper arms frantically.

"Blizzard," she shouted. "It's so thick, and Mulder and John... they're out there..."

I leapt to my feet and pushed past her. I stood on the pilot's seat and climbed out the top of the plane to the freezing blizzard. Scully emerged beside me, holding on to my arm, determined not to lose me with the low visibility.

"Where are they?" I shouted at her. "Which direction?"

She pointed off to my right. They must have gone further than normal.

"Shit," I muttered, but the word was eaten by the wind.

Snow was pounding at our faces, and piling up around my legs, already burying my feet.

I put my hands to my mouth and started shouting. "John! Mul-der! Can you hear me? John! We're over here!"

I knew they would have trouble seeing where the plane was, so if I shouted out their names, they would be able to follow my voice to find their way back.

The seconds kept ticking past and we saw no sign of them. I was beginning to get so cold, and I wanted to jump down back inside, but the thought was unthinkable as long as John and Mulder were out there.

I looked to Scully. She was getting even more panicky, and I knew that we had to do something. Before I even knew what I was doing, I had pushed her grip off me and was heading out in to the snow.

She screamed after me. "Monica! Agent Reyes...!"

I ignored her. All I could think of was John, out there, lost. There was no way I was going to lose John. I would rather freeze to death in the search than go back and hide, and lose him forever.

I started off in the direction Dana had pointed. I could not see. I could only feel the snow against me, squinting as I tried to block it from my eyes.

I shouted as I went. "John! Mul-der!"

There was no answer, and their lack of answer meant they must still be out there. I walked on. I'd rather die than go back and hide. I wasn't going to desert John when he needed me. But as I went on, I began to get lost in the whiteness, and after five minutes of walking, I realised that I didn't even know where I was. In my frantic efforts to find them, I had abandoned all sense of direction.

"John! Agent Dog-gett!" I shouted, over and over, and each time I paused, waiting for a sign of a reply, that they had heard me, or were back safe. But none came. If I strained hard enough, I could hear Scully's calls, but after a while, they too faded, and then there was nothing.

Our clothes were not waterproof. I was wearing several layers, but I could feel that the snow had soaked through nearly all. My clothes were stuck to me. My feet and legs were growing numb, as were my hands, which were not protected by gloves. I hugged myself, walking on in any direction my feet chose. They had to be here somewhere. Maybe after John did his business they walked off further, discussing the route for our hike. It was possible.

I could not let them die like Skinner. I wasn't going to stand back and wait for time to pass, until the blizzard ceased and we would walk out to find their frozen bodies. It wasn't going to happen. I had lost so many friends and colleagues already, but if I lost John, I would not be able to go on. Scully would feel the same about Mulder. We wouldn't be able to take any more of it.

The cold was starting to get through to me, and I decided that I had walked enough in the one direction, and that John and Mulder must have been in the other. I turned around. I would walk back to where the plane was, and then pick another direction.

"John!"

I tried to call for Mulder, but my voice wouldn't work. It was as though it had frozen too, along with my feet. The wind was still slapping at me, my hair was plastered to my face, and the tears it brought clouded my vision even more than the snow. Gradually I lost sight of not only where I was going, but of everything. I could not see, and I paused to try and clear the fuzz, but only to realise that my feet would no longer work. The cold had soaked through my shoes and socks, and now the signals that my brain was sending to them were returned halfway. The roads of nerves were impassible from the freeze.

Everything blurred, and I collapsed to the ground. It would only be a short rest. I would get my strength back, and then continue on... to find John...

*

Someone was slapping my face.

"Monica! Get up!"

I opened my eyes, and after a few seconds managed to see two dark blurs. One was John, and the other was Mulder. They each took an arm of mine and were trying to pull me to my feet.

"Come on, Monica!" shouted Mulder. "You have to help us, here!"

He had to be kidding. I couldn't move. I was so numb.

"Monica, come on!" shouted John. Then between them they had pulled me to my feet, throwing an arm around each of their shoulders. I tried to work my feet, to make them support my weight.

John and Mulder were both fully supporting me, and pulling me in some unknown direction. I tried to make my feet work, but it wasn't until we had gone for twenty or thirty seconds that they came to some kind of life. They worked, but John and Mulder were already carrying me that much that I didn't have to work hard.

I didn't try to make my eyes work. They were so cold, and stinging too much from the wind. I gave in to John and Mulder, and let them lead me.

And after a few minutes, a familiar voice sounded to my ears.

It was Scully, shouting, with a serious case of mania. "Mul-der! John! Monica! Mul-der...!"

She blurred in to view, but just as I was trying to focus on her, she disappeared again. Then Mulder let go of me, and I was relying completely on John to stand. Before I could figure it out, John was pushing me to kneel down, and then there was no snow any more. My stinging eyes made out the pilot's chair, and Mulder and Scully beside it, reaching up to pull me down. So that's where they were... how funny...

"Put your feet down!" shouted John, and I was faintly aware of him putting his hands on my legs, and then working with Mulder to bring me down in to the plane. It was more of a fall than a skilful climb. I arrived with a thud on the pilot's chair, and then Mulder lifted me off it, on to the floor. John jumped down with practised perfection, and then he took the other side of me, Mulder and John both pulling me in the main part of the plane.

The moment Scully shut the door behind us, John weakened his grip on me and I collapsed to the floor and closed my eyes.

All I wanted to do was sleep, but a muttering from Scully kept pinching at me. "Mulder, get her bag... and some blankets... that's right, over here..."

Then suddenly she became much louder. She held my hands gently and knelt over me. "Monica, can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes, Monica. Open your eyes..."

I just wanted to sleep. I was considering if I could ignore her when John backed her up. "Come on, Monica... please open them..."

I slowly opened them, and then there was brightness. I could see. There was no more snow. But it hurt to look. Every part of my body was cold. I could not move. I had no energy.

"Good," said Dana, and she gave my hands a little squeeze. "Monica, I need you to listen to me carefully, okay?"

I glanced at John. His eyes were pleading. They both looked so scared that I forced myself to give in. I looked back to Dana, meeting her eyes. I couldn't speak, so I just waited for her to continue.

"Monica, you have serious hypothermia." It was strange to see her eyes so scared. The only time I had ever seen it before was when she was worried about Mulder. "Monica, listen to me..."

I realised that my eyes had wandered up to the ceiling, and I forced myself to focus and look back at her.

"You have serious hypothermia. I don't want you to worry. We'll take care of everything. You just need to stay awake, okay? We'll help you, but it is crucial that you stay with us. You can't shut your eyes."

It didn't make sense. My first question was why not? But then I forced myself to focus, and I knew that must have been some kind of medical reason. John was still looking terrified, and I focused up on the roof again, rather than look at him.

Scully gave my hands another squeeze, bringing my attention back to her. "The first thing we're going to do is take your wet clothes off, okay?"

She didn't wait for an answer, but it didn't matter. I was far beyond caring. Her hands moved to my jacket, and she unzipped it. Her eyes kept coming back to mine, to check I was still awake.

After a few seconds everything started to fade again. I gazed at Scully's jacket, and her red hair, but without really taking in anything I was seeing.

"What's your name?" asked Scully suddenly. "Can you tell us your name?"

I dug through my brain, and was surprised when it took me a minute to find the answer. It took me longer while I tried to find my voice. "Monica."

One word was all I could manage.

"What about mine?"

John's face came in to view. He moved to hold my hand, now that Scully had let go.

"John."

"And where do we live?"

That one took a little longer. I fought way back for a memory. I could see our office, then my apartment, but I searched for a name.

"D.C.," I whispered.

I saw Scully nod her approval, and her face came back in to view. "Monica, we need you to sit up a little. Just so we can slide your jacket off..."

I didn't get a choice. John was already pulling me up. Maybe he knew that there was no way I would have been able to manage it on my own. He brought me to sit up, leaning against him. I put my head on his shoulder and slipped out, letting my eyes close.

"Monica, stay with us!" shouted John. "Don't leave us."

I struggled to open my eyes again. Scully grabbed hold of my arms and was working to get the jacket off me. After a minute she succeeded and threw it aside.

She moved her hands to my first shirt, her fingers hurriedly undoing the buttons. "Do you know where we are now?"

Again, I tried to unfreeze my voice. "Plane..."

"But where?" asked John. He supported me while Scully moved my first shirt, moving then to my second.

I tried to visualise a map in my mind, trying to remember where the hell we were. Eventually an answer came to me. "Canada..."

"Good," said Scully, again. She paused while she removed my second shirt, leaving me in only my bra. "Lie down."

I was so grateful that John let me lie down on the floor again. The longer I sat up, the more dizzy I had become. But on the floor, everything was a fraction more manageable.

Dana had a towel in her hands and was wiping down the top half of my body, removing all the wetness from the snow.

She caught my eyes again. "Can you tell me what Mulder's doing?"

That was a hard one. I had no idea what Mulder was doing. I could see him down near my feet, but I couldn't quite see what he was doing, and the longer I hesitated, the more worried Scully and John became.

I let my head fall back on to the floor, giving up. "Don't know..."

I saw them exchange a look.

Scully put the towel aside and then put her hands on my arms, pulling me up again. "Come on, last time, I promise."

I grudgingly sat up, letting my head fall again on to John's shoulder. It hadn't even entered my head that he was seeing me with so little on. I was too frustrated with not being able to answer Scully's question.

I was going to take a look at what Mulder was doing, but Scully distracted me again. "Monica, I'm going to change your bra, okay?"

I became faintly aware of her hand sweeping around my back, and then she was sliding it over my arms. John was looking away, down at my feet. He was trying to be a gentleman. He was wasting his time. I was so close to him, and to Scully and Mulder, that I didn't care if they saw me naked. In our situation, with all we had been through, it was stupid to care.

I waited a few more seconds while Scully took another bra from my bag and helped me put it on. When done, she grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. John was looking back at me now.

I looked down at Mulder, and finally realised what he was doing. He had removed my shoes, and socks, and was towelling my feet dry. I hadn't felt any of it. A small panic started to rise within me. Not feeling my feet was bad. That was why John and Dana looked worried when I couldn't answer.

Scully had her hands on my shoulders and was pushing me back down to the floor. I welcomed it. My head hurt being vertical. As soon as I was horizontal again, she moved her hands under the blanket and was working on my pants.

"Can you feel Mulder touching your feet?" she asked, unzipping the first pair of pants, and reaching under me to pull them off.

I searched for any sign of feeling, but there was none. "No."

John's eyes shot up to mine, but he said nothing. He only put his hand on my shoulder, rubbing through the blanket.

Scully was at my feet with Mulder. They pulled off my first pair of pants, and then Scully came straight back up to my waist, reaching under the blanket again for the second pair.

She was working to get my second pair of pants over my ankles. "What about your knees and legs? Can you feel them?"

I couldn't tell. Dana came back up to my waist, working on my third and final pair of pants. Again, she reached under the blanket and unzipped them.

She paused to put her hands on my stomach. "Can you feel my hands?"

"Yes." They were surprisingly warm, too. Or maybe it was just that I was so cold.

"Good," she said, and she pulled my pants down, working them under my butt, over my knees and down to my ankles, where the job was taken over by Mulder.

My legs now bare, Scully put her hands on my shins. "Tell me if you can feel them now."

"No," I said.

She moved them to just above my knees. I could feel that, slightly. "A little. Just."

She gave a look to John. It was another one of those worried looks, too. I didn't have time to think about it, because Dana had pulled out some black underwear from my bag and put it beside me. I didn't need to ask what she was going to do. I didn't care, either.

John was looking away again. Mulder was rubbing my feet, trying to get the circulation going, but he, too, was trying to be a gentleman.

Dana didn't hesitate. She reached under the blanket, and pulled my existing underwear straight off. She did it so quick that it was almost like she'd had plenty of practise. She threw them aside, and then grabbed the other pair and was pulling them over my numb feet, and up to where they were supposed to be. Then she ran the towel over me, and pulled the blanket back down over me, down to my ankles.

She looked to John. "John, we need your help..."

He stopped her halfway through. "I know what you're thinking, Dana. And I'm happy to do it."

I looked from one to the other, trying to work out what they meant. Then it clicked. The treatment for hypothermia in situations like this was body heat. Oh my God...

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I'll do it if you'd prefer."

"No, I'll do it," he said. He moved his hands to his jacket, working to get it off. He was going to do this properly... help...

Half my body was numb. I was freezing cold. But I was still not sick enough to miss what this meant. If anything, it was only going to speed up my recovery. The only thing was I wished it was under different circumstances. But still, it could have been worse. At least I was waking up. Before I could not keep my eyes open. A small improvement.

John continued to strip until he was down to his briefs. Then he shrugged and looked at Scully, waiting for directions.

Scully took my hand. "Monica, are you okay with this?"

She'd already guessed I would be, or she wouldn't have had John strip before asking me.

"It's fine, Dana," I said, and was immediately impressed that I'd managed to pull together more than one word.

"Okay," she said, letting go of my hand. "Leave this blanket on the floor. We'll get another to go over you."

I pushed the blanket away from my body, and down on to the floor like she'd suggested. I saw John's eyes sweep over me, but he pulled them away just as quickly. Then Dana put a hand on his back, gently pushing him in my direction and then he was lying down next to me. He turned on his side, reaching for me with his arms. I tried to crawl toward him, but my legs were still numb, so it was too hard. Seeing this, John crawled further toward me and put one hand on my waist, pulling me around in to him. I was on top of him then, and I let my head fall against his chest, bringing my arms up his sides to feel his warmth.

"You're so warm..." I said, burrowing in to him.

He slid his arms around my back, one floating down near my underwear and the other up near my shoulders.

"That's the whole idea," he said.

A blanket hit my back. It was Scully and Mulder, wrapping us up in blankets, and everything warm they would find.

"Don't get too comfortable, Monica," said Scully. "I still don't want you to close your eyes."

"I'm awake," I said, with a certainty I'd never managed before.

My head was against John's chest. He was so warm, and I was free to use that warmth. It was almost worth faking sickness so I could stay longer. Almost. I'd never do that, but it was a good thought.

I could feel one of John's hands in the ends of my hair. "Monica, your hair's all wet."

A towel gently landed on the back of my head. It was from Dana. She was going to dry it, but John took over.

"I'll do it," he said, and he took the towel with both hands, running it over and through my hair.

I forced my mind back on Dana's statement. Don't get too comfortable. Right. I could do that. Every inch of me was being warmed by a near-naked John, but I wasn't comfortable.

Mulder expertly distracted me. He came to sit next to us with Scully. "Are you going to tell us what happened out there?"

I didn't know what had happened out there.

Scully jumped in. "We were worried when you didn't return. Monica went to find you."

I was expecting the anger. I was expecting to be called a stupid idiot, but surprisingly, the moment never came.

Mulder nodded with understanding. "We went for a short walk. We were discussing the route we were going to take for our hike."

"That's what we thought," said Scully.

A thought struck me. If all three of us had been out there, then why was I the only one with hypothermia?

"Where were you?" I asked. "How did you escape unharmed?"

Now they were looking awkward.

John paused drying my hair to answer. "Turns out we came back shortly after you left. Dana told us you'd gone, and we changed in to dry clothes and came to find you."

Now that I thought about it, it was all piecing together. They would have stopped for a minute to warm up, and would have then come out to find me. They found me after I'd collapsed, and that was when I woke to them lifting me to my feet.

If I'd stayed, I wouldn't have got myself in to trouble, and I wouldn't have risked their lives a second time. It was fine for them to not blame me for that, but I couldn't help feeling guilty.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I waited a few minutes, and I guess I panicked when you didn't show up. And after Skinner and Kim... I just had to find you."

"We're not blaming you, Monica," said John.

"You going out there to save us was no more insane than us going out there to save you," added Mulder.

"Dana didn't," I said. She had been the one to stay. She had been the logical one all along.

Scully gave a little laugh. "I was considering going out when you did it before me. I only stayed because I knew you'd need someone to call for you, so you could find your way back. If it hadn't have been you, it would have been me. So don't feel bad."

I nearly smiled. Mulder was right. Me wanting to save them, was just the same as them wanting to save me. And in Scully's place, I would have done the same as her. If she hadn't been there, shouting, we would have never found the plane again. It all made sense now. No more needed to be said.

"What about the hike?" asked Mulder gently. "Are you still up for that?"

I didn't need to consider it. "Yes. We need to get out of here."

"Okay," said Scully. "Well just take it easy for a few hours, while this blizzard passes, and if your temperature is back to normal afterward, we'll think about it then."

"You'll be fine, Monica," said John. He had given the towel back to Scully and had his hands down on my back again, rubbing up and down.

"Thank you," I said softly.

"We love you, Monica," said John. "And we're going to get out of here. End of story."

*  
THE NINTH NIGHT

We couldn't leave in the night, so we had no choice but to sit it out in the plane, and wait till morning to come. The blizzard continued for a few hours, but it stopped somewhere around 11pm, and that's when Dana and Mulder started to launch in to a talk of their plans.

Dana pulled a thermometer out of her bag and pushed it in to my mouth. I knew I was fine. I had been since shortly after I'd curled up with John. But if it made her feel better, then I would let her do it.

A minute or so later she pulled it out again, and pushed it in the beam of her flashlight to read it. "You're fine. Completely normal."

Mulder gave a sigh of relief, grabbing my bag and throwing it towards me. "Here, you might want to get dressed now."

John reluctantly released me from his arms and I pushed the blankets aside and crawled off him. As I dug out some dry clothes, I couldn't help noticing that Mulder and John had turned away in an effort to give me some privacy. I smiled.

"What are we going to take for the trip?" I asked. I couldn't stand the silence, and had to fill it with something.

John started ticking the items off on his fingers. "Water, all the warmest clothes, food, rope, radio, guns -"  
"Guns?" I asked, stopping halfway through buttoning up my shirt.

"We won't need them," he said quickly. "It's just in case we encounter any wild animals. Self-defence."

I still had the memory of Brad in my mind, but there was too much logic in John's argument to argue with. There was a good chance there was wildlife out there, and it was better to prepare for it than get in to trouble later.

Dana turned to me. She'd been rummaging through someone's bag and had pulled out a jacket. "Monica, I want you to take this. It's warmer than anything you've got, and it's waterproof, too."

I recognised the dull grey. I knew that jacket. "That's Brad's."

"I know," she said, with an apologetic look, but she still held it out for me. "But he was your friend, and I'm sure he'd prefer you to take it rather than get sick again when we go out."

"Dana, if I wear that, it'll be a constant reminder of what happened," I said. "I feel bad enough already."

I was expecting her to shrug and turn away, but she surprised me by moving closer and pressing it gently in to my hands.

"We all feel bad, and not just about Follmer. About everyone. But we know they wouldn't want you to give up. Someone has to get out of here, and it has to be us. Take it. It's purely for your own warmth. That's all."

I still hesitated. Things just kept getting worse for us.

"Please," Dana whispered. "Monica, I don't know if you realise how close you came after that blizzard, but I don't want you to come that close again."

I nodded and took the jacket.

As I zipped it up, my eyes fell on Mulder. He was standing up, writing something on the wall and roof of the plane with a small tube.

"Mulder, that's my lipstick," I said, staring at him.

He didn't even stop. "I'll buy you another one."

"What are you writing?" I asked, moving to stand next to him so I could read it.

"I'm writing that we're going, where to find us, and where to find Kim and Skinner. If someone finds the plane while we're gone, hopefully they'll be able to track us."

"You don't have to write it now," said Scully, also coming over to admire Mulder's art work. "We agreed we're not going anywhere till it gets light."

"I want to be out of here at the first ray," he said, turning to face us. "We won't be able to hang around, wasting time."

John turned to face us. "And if that's the case, we'd better get some decent sleep."

*

DAY TEN

"John, wake up."

I reached over him and shook his shoulder gently. He groaned, but otherwise ignored me.

"Come on, sleepyhead," I said, lightly slapping his face. "It's time to go. This is it."

He sat up, yawning and squinting. I couldn't help grinning.

"Honestly, I'm going to kill Mulder. 'First ray'. What an idiot." He threw the blanket aside and started feeling around for his shoes.

I got to my feet, waiting for John at the door to the pilot's cabin. "Scully's finishing off our food situation. We're leaving in two minutes."

Thinking it would be good to leave John alone to recover from his early morning grumpiness, I went and climbed out on to the snow, to join Scully and Mulder. It felt like a mistake. Waking up to seeing Scully cutting out internal organs made me feel sick. It wasn't a sight I was ever going to get used to. I could learn to deal with it. I could learn to force myself to eat for survival, but I could not shake the thought of what the families would say when they found out. I turned and chose instead to look out in to the snow, gazing at the slopes that we would soon be climbing.

"John! Glad you're here. We were about to go without you."

I turned back around to see Scully grinning at John. He yawned again.

"Be there in a minute, Dana. I can't have my usual breakfast or shower, but I'm not going anywhere without my early morning pee."

I smiled at him and watched him go around the other side of the plane.

"Speaking of which," said Scully, throwing a bottle of water at me, "Have a drink. You'll need it."

I took a few gulps of water and then returned my attention to the mountains. "Have you checked the weather forecast?"

"Yes," said Mulder. "Clear weather for at least two days."

"There's a lot of land out there," I said, scanning the mountain peaks. "Are you sure we'll make it in time? It's cutting it fine."

"No," he said. "But I'm sure that we'll go crazy if we stay here any longer."

John came back around just in time to give another memorable remark. "You already were crazy, Mulder."

I walked back over to where my bag was waiting for me on the snow, and I stuffed the bottle of water in to it. I picked it up and swung it over my shoulders.

"Are we ready?" I asked. The more I stared at the mountains, the more I just wanted to start and get it over with. We were wasting good weather standing around talking.

Dana finished packing the food in and then pulled up her own bag. "I've had enough of this place. Let's get out of here."

We all exchanged smiles, took deep breaths, and then began to hike out for the mountain that Kim and Skinner had died on.

*

We had walked all morning, and only stopped at the peak of the mountain for lunch. The weather was still being kind to us. We had taken a short break at Kim and Skinner's bodies, but after five minutes of fighting tears, we came together and said another prayer, and that seemed to help. It was scary, though, to see their bodies frozen there, their failed attempt on a hike for rescue. What if we failed, too? What if we ended up like that? I tried to push the thought out, tried to rationalise it by saying that it was only because Kim slipped, and if we watched where we were walking, we would be fine.

By the time we reached the top of the mountain, we were all physically and emotionally exhausted and in need of a long rest. Of course, no rest could have ever been long enough for me.

"Anyone want something to eat?" asked Scully. She threw her pack down off her shoulders and started digging through it.

No one replied. The food in there was hardly something for us to be enthusiastic about. But as much as I hated it, I knew we needed the energy. To not eat would be disastrous.

It turned out that she didn't need an answer. She dipped her hand in and pulled out an unrecognisable internal organ. I felt my stomach turn.

"John," she said, holding it out for him. I gave John a sympathetic look, but he moved forward and took the food, turning away to nibble on it without us watching.

She didn't speak my name when she held the next part out for me, but I got the message. I took a deep breath and took it from her. It was something I would never get used to doing, but it was a necessity. It was that, or death. Simple choice.

Dana and Mulder were the last to take food, and when they did, they declared they wanted a few moments for themselves and disappeared over a few rocks and around a bend, out of sight.

"What do you think?" asked John, coming to stand next to me with his hands still full.

"Of what?" I replied. "You'll have to narrow that down or we'll be here forever."

"Our chances."

I exhaled slowly while my mind again drifted to our friends who didn't make it. "I don't think you want to know."

John nodded sadly. "Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too."

I hated to put doubt in to his mind. We were here now, so there was no use in being negative. I searched for something positive. "Depends how you look at it. I would have said our chances at surviving a plane crash were next to impossible. I would have said our chances at surviving an avalanche were fairly slim. And I would have said our chances at surviving ten days weren't good, either. But we've done all those, and maybe if we survived all that, we'll get lucky one more time, and we'll survive this one, too."

"Well it'd be annoying to be stopped now when we've survived so much," he said, looking down a the food still in his hand. He raised it hesitantly to his lips, frowning as he took a bite. "I just wish it was easier."

"Life wasn't meant to be easy," I said.

"It wasn't meant to be like this, either," he said. "When God invented people I'm sure he didn't have cannibalism on his mind."

"The bible allows for it in situations where it's a matter of survival."

"Even so, don't you wonder if we're doing the right thing?" He stopped eating and turned to face me.

"Of course we are," I said quickly. "It's definitely not an everyday experience, and definitely not a pleasant one, but I've thought it through, and I think we are doing the right thing. It's the ultimate sacrifice, doing that for your friends. I mean, if I died right now, the thought that my body would help you survive long enough to get out of here is comforting. And not only will you not care if you're dead, but your soul has already departed and so it doesn't matter. All we're doing is eating a body which would decay to nothing in normal circumstances anyway."

John drifted off in to deep thought, but I could tell I had him mostly persuaded. There was nothing that could persuade us to enjoy doing it, but there were plenty of reasons that argued for why it was the right thing to do.

Our thoughtful silence, gazing out at the other mountains, was interrupted by sudden shouts from Mulder and Scully.

"Scully!" screamed Mulder. "Scully, hold on!"

Trouble. There was trouble. We could tell from the panic in his voice. John and I dropped everything and ran around the rocks, around to the area where they had walked. Jumping over a large rock, I came to a sudden stop, John grabbing the back of my jacket to prevent me from going off the edge of a cliff - the cliff that Dana was already hanging off.

I threw myself down on my stomach and wriggled up next to Mulder. He had her by the wrists, but was struggling to maintain his grip and pull her up. I reached down and took one of her wrists, leaving Mulder to move both his hands to her other.

"Hold on, Dana!" I yelled.

I don't know if she even heard me. Her legs were thrashing around, and her eyes were wide with terror. Mulder and I slowly pulled her up. I didn't want to rush it and lose my grip on her. We took it slowly, and soon we had her shoulders over, and Mulder took her in his arms while I reached down to pull her legs up. I shifted back a little to give her room to sit on the edge of the cliff, and then she was up. She threw her arms around Mulder's shoulders and buried her face in his neck.

I looked over my shoulder, exchanging a relieved a look with John. The whole thing had happened so quick. That was the way it seemed to happen up here. No death ever approached you gradually. Like the avalanche. You didn't get any time to see it coming.

Dana wasn't crying, but she was severely shaken. Mulder calmed her down after a few minutes, and she loosened her grip on him and pulled away.

"Oh my God," she said, taking another slow breath to try and calm herself. Then she reached toward me and took me in a tight hug. I held her.

"Thank you, Monica," she whispered in my ear.

Her grip was still strangling me, and I started to get concerned. "Dana, you're okay. You're all right."

She pulled away a little and glanced around at John and Mulder. They were both wearing expressions as puzzled as mine. Dana wasn't normally one to fall apart that deeply.

"I was just..." she paused as she took another deep breath. "I just can't get Kim's fall out of my mind, and for a minute, I thought that... I mean, I understood..."

She broke off and shook her head, unable to explain to us what she was thinking. But that had been enough for me to get the idea. It made sense now. Like me, she was constantly thinking of Kim and Skinner, and how their last few moments must have been. Kim's terror as she could feel herself falling, and Skinner's helplessness. When Dana slipped, she understood exactly how it felt for Kim, and we had understood how it felt for Skinner. We had come close to losing Scully the same way that we lost Kim. I couldn't blame her for being shaken.

I was the first to react. I brought her back in to the hug, pressing a kiss to her cheek. "You're okay. It could've happened, but it didn't. We're all fine, Dana."

Mulder brought a hand to her back in sympathy, and she pulled away again, this time not bothering to try and gain control.

"It's so unfair," she said, her voice flat. "I wish so much she was here with us."

I wished that about everyone. Especially Brad. I was still wearing his jacket.

"We all do," said John, who had knelt down beside me. "Kim was a great person and didn't deserve what happened. I mean, she lost everything just because of one little mistake. They should all be here with us."

"I hate death," she said. "There just doesn't seem to be any logic to it."

"Not up here," said Mulder. "Up here it's random. If you let down your guard even for a second you're gone."

Dana nodded thoughtfully and then suddenly got to her feet. "If that's true, then we're a sitting target here. We'd better get going."

We followed her. We had a long way to go, and only limited daylight and clear weather. We couldn't spend too much time sitting and talking.

*  
THE TENTH NIGHT

Scully going off the side of the cliff dampened my positive attitude. She was right. So many people had died. Was there really any chance of our survival? Maybe we were just talking toward the inevitable.

And it wasn't an easy path. We didn't know exactly where we were, or which direction was best to walk in, so we just picked west. West had to lead to civilisation eventually. The path would be easy for quite a while, but far up ahead there was another peak that Mulder wanted to climb to see if we could get a good view from there. Then it would be tough. I was already exhausted.

We walked all afternoon. Most of it was easy. The first part had been downhill, and then it was flat as we worked our way around the edge of the mountains. There were rocky bits, and a few unexpected climbs, but nothing too alarming. But even so, by the time night fell, we were all exhausted. My feet were numb again, as were my hands, and we started looking for a spot to spend the night.

"How long are we resting for?" asked John. We had come across a section of rock that would allow us to be partly sheltered from any wind. We immediately threw our gear down amongst the rocks and sat down, leaning back and searching our packs for water.

"We should probably get some sleep," said Scully. "So for a few hours, but it's probably best if we're off again before sunrise."

John wriggled closer to me, until our shoulders and thighs were touching. By now, I was so used to him doing it that it had become routine. It was for warmth. Even with the clear sky and lack of snowfall, it was still a freezing night. I finished drinking the water and then shifted to lean against him. He didn't object. He only pulled me even closer until I was fully against him, feeling his chest rise and fall as he breathed.

Dana had brought two blankets with her, and she pulled one out and gave it to me. I wrapped it around myself and John, and then let my head fall back against his chest, willing myself to sleep.

It was a long while before sleep came. Thoughts kept rushing through my mind. Images of Brad dead, of Kim's frozen face, of Skinner's body, and of Holly - our friend who had gone so early on, due to our carelessness. Poor Holly, who had to live with her wounded leg. We hadn't realised the consequences of it. Dana had commented once or twice that she thought Holly would have been delirious when she walked off, not realising how far civilisation was. That only made me feel worse. If she had been, then it made the fact that we hadn't noticed much worse.

And poor Kim. Kim who had trouble dealing with the guilt of Holly's death. Kim who was so strong, and hiked us all the way up the mountain peak that we had struggled to climb again today. She was a gem. Then she snapped, but we were there for her, arriving in time to prevent another Holly-like disaster. Then, when she had coped with the most extreme circumstances, she was struck down by a misplaced foot. Dana was right. Kim was such a lovely person, and one who I was only beginning to get to know. If she had still been with us, we could have been great friends. Fate was so cruel.

Skinner. My boss who I hadn't had much time to get to know on a personal level, but who was great friends with Mulder and Scully. When we stopped by his body this afternoon, I could see the pain in their eyes. They tried to disguise it, but I could see it. What hurt me was that there was nothing I could do. Skinner shouldn't have had to die. It was all wrong. What kept me awake the most was imagining what he would have felt after seeing Kim fall. He wouldn't have wanted to go, because he wouldn't have known for sure if she was okay. He couldn't leave her. But at the same time, there was nothing he could do. He couldn't attempt the climb himself. And while he would have been standing there, too shocked to move, the snow kept falling, until it was too late for him to do anything.

I loved Skinner, Holly and Kim. I would never, ever forget what happened to them, and I wasn't sure we would ever fully recover from it. But the pain I experienced thinking about them still didn't come anywhere near the torture of thinking about Brad. What a turbulent friendship we'd had. But it was wrong. His death had not been committed by nature, it had been by himself, and our lack of support. I had recognised his pain. I had tried to deal with it, but somehow failed. My head kept telling me that Dana was right, that there was nothing I could have done. But my heart was torn. I was supposed to be his friend, and yet he managed to walk off and commit suicide without anyone trying to stop him. And what if it happened again? What if I turned my back for a few seconds, failing to recognise pain in one of the three people with me now? What if they did a similar thing? I didn't want to bring the guns with us, but we had no choice. I wasn't comfortable having my friends armed as long as we were in the mountains.

Eighteen people were dead. Seventeen had been killed by the mountains in which we were now surrounded. What on Earth gave us the idea that we would survive? It was a hope, a hope we held on to out of fear of going insane in the wait for rescue. Did any of us really believe that we could walk out of here? We had no proper gear, and no proper food. We had nothing that we would need. It was a blind hope. Nature had attempted to kill us several times now, and there were no signs that it was going to give up. It slowly picked us off, one by one. Maybe we weren't immune. There was no certainty that we stood a chance. All we were doing was hoping, and I didn't know if that would be enough.

Trekking across these mountains with no equipment would take more than hope. It takes guts and strength which I wasn't sure we had. We were all strong individuals, but we were currently at our very worst, and as long as the images of our dead friends filled my mind, I was having trouble maintaining the strength we needed. I wasn't the only one, either. Dana's temporary loss of control today was a sign that we were all feeling the same. As was John's concern when he asked me what our chances were of making it out. They felt the doubt, just like I did. They felt the pain, and I wasn't sure if pain was going to carry us out of here.

It would take more than hope for us to make it out of here, and the way we were going, we didn't even have much hope. I sighed and turned over, back in to John. It was going to be a long night.

*  
DAY ELEVEN

Our golden rule for survival in the mountains was to expect nothing to go to plan. I'd forgotten our rule when I woke, but I was soon reminded of it.

The first thing I noticed was that it was still freezing. Even more so than it was the night before. The second was that part of the reason was that John was no longer behind me, and I was leaning against a cold rock. The third was that Scully and Mulder were awake, and it was them who answered my question before it was even out my mouth.

"John's sick," said Scully. "He's been sick the last few hours."

I didn't have to ask her to explain what she meant by "sick". It would be the same kind of sick that Mulder had been dealt. Poor John. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the consequences.

"We can't leave until he's better," said Scully, a worried look on her face at how long that might be.

I sighed and took my bag, looking for my bottle of water. "I guess it was too much for everything to be going so well."

Mulder held out a bottle for me. "Here, we took yours to fill it up again."

I raised an eyebrow. They must have been awake for hours.

Another unpleasant thought hit me. "But John will be able to hike, right? He'll be all right, won't he?"

Scully hesitated. "He won't be feeling too great, but he should be able to, with our help. But with that and the time we've already lost, we won't cover as much ground as we did yesterday."

I looked around at the surroundings rocks and snow. "Where is he?"

Scully pointed over another set of rocks. "He's behind there. He'll be all right. I've been checking on him every fifteen minutes or so. Might be best to leave him alone for a while. He's a little embarrassed and frustrated, to say the least."

That was a situation that reminded me of Brad. It was always dangerous to leave someone alone with their thoughts for too long. I was debating whether to go see him when Mulder came around and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry. We took his gun. And he might be sick, but he still wants to get out of here. It delays us, but we'll still be all right. We have plenty of time."

I tried to give him a smile, but it didn't quite work out. "I just wonder if we're ever going to get out of here."

*

We set off about an hour and half later, and the walk turned out to be a hundred times tougher than it had been the day before. John was weak, and I walked beside him the entire time. I tried to help, but he was angry with himself for delaying us, and didn't want to be a burden by allowing me to help him walk. So, in the end I gave in to his stubbornness, and I just stayed beside him, ready to help him if he needed it.

Hours later, we fought our way up the second mountain, reaching the peak to get a good view of the surrounding landscape, and searching for any sign of civilisation or low land.

"We're doomed," said John, looking around a the endless snowy mountains as he caught his breath.

"Pessimist," I said, trying to smile. Someone in the group had to be positive.

"Give me a reason to be positive, Monica," he said, turning back to me, with something approaching anger in his eyes.

I searched for one out in the mountains. And I found it, way in the distance. "See that? It's green over there."

"Do you realise how far away that is?" he shouted. "We'll never make it!"

"We might," said Mulder, who had come over to see what we were looking at. "If the weather holds a little longer."

"A 'little' longer?" shouted John. "That's miles away! There's no way we're going to get through that before the next blizzard."

"Not if we stand here arguing," said Scully, crossing her arms.

"John," I said, taking a step toward him, "We'll make it. Just take it easy."

"Take it easy?" he said. "I don't see any reason why we should be taking it easy. We're stuck in the middle of nowhere!"

"We'll make it," I said, trying to calm him down.

But he wasn't calmed. "That's what everyone else thought, and look what happened to them!"

We all stopped, silent. John was still staring at us, waiting for a reaction. He didn't seem to have realised what he'd said. We'd been trying so hard to make it past the deaths of our friends, and here John was bringing it up again.

"They were accidents," I said weakly.

"Accidents?" he said. "There's no such thing, Monica. We've been escaping death ever since we crashed in these mountains. One time after another, over and over. First the crash, then the avalanche, Holly, Kim, Skinner, Follmer... the list goes on. Don't you get it? We're meant to die. We're not meant to get out of here. This is it. We were doomed right from the start."

"And what are you going to do?" I asked, feeling my temper beginning to rise. "You just going to sit here and wait to die?"

"And what if I do?" he shouted. "Wouldn't you rather die happy up here, than die of exhaustion a few miles on? We're doomed, Monica. Don't you get it? I mean, look at us! We're all weak. We've lost eighteen other agents, what on Earth gave you the idea that we could survive out here? Holly, Kim and Skinner all died doing the same thing, and you just blinded yourself to that and walked on anyway! When are you going to stop? When are you going to realise that there's nothing you can do?"

"When there truly is nothing we can do," I said. "But we aren't there yet. We can still make it out of here. We have food, and we have water. Kim and Skinner dying doesn't necessarily mean that the same thing will happen to us. I'm not just going to throw my bag down and wait for death, John. And that's not like you. It's not like you to give up. Just a few more miles and we'll be out of here. You'll see your family again, and can go back to your normal lifestyle."

"Go back to normal?" John repeated, shaking his head. "There's no going back, Monica. We've lost eighteen agents. You think that's just something you're going to walk away from? And what about that food you've got in your bag? It's like Kim said. What are you going to say about that? How are you going to explain that you ate a colleague to preserve your own life? Or worse. How are you going to explain that the Assistant Director shot himself, because we were all too preoccupied with our own petty concerns to take any notice of him."

I opened my mouth to strongly object, but John was on a roll and he turned to shout at Scully before I could get a word in.

"And what about you? You're a doctor! How are you going to explain to Holly's family that you failed to notice the side-effects of her condition? That you fell asleep, ignoring the fact that she was delirious, and left her to die? Have you thought about that? What about the families of those you've cut up, Dana? What are you going to say to them? You all can't wait to get out of here, but it hasn't occurred to you that you may not be welcomed with open arms."

"Okay, so what about you, Agent Doggett?" shouted Scully. "Your solution to that is to sit down and give up? You're just going to wait for death to come?"

"I told you," he said. "This is fate, Dana."

"I thought you were a sceptic," I said. "When did you change sides?"

"It's logical," he said. "You calculate it yourself, Monica. There is no way we're going to make that green patch before the next snowfall. No one here ever thought we would make it! Ask Dana and Mulder. You don't find it odd that they delayed our departure so easily? Have you asked why they wanted to leave before sunrise? You know the time is limited! You knew that we'd never make it. That's why when I got sick, you weren't at all bothered. You knew that nothing changed, because we were doomed from the start, anyway. You only started with this trip because you couldn't handle sitting in the plane. You didn't care that you were dead, you just wanted to keep your minds occupied."

I turned to look at Scully and Mulder. Now that he'd mentioned it, that did seem odd. But it still didn't add up.

"If we'd thought there was no hope, we would have never let Kim and Skinner go out on that hike," I said.

"We knew it was a long shot. It's just that no one had the energy to hold Kim back. She's a force no one wanted to argue with."

This conversation was getting ridiculous. "John, everything we've done has been right at the time we did it. We've made mistakes, but only in hindsight. You can't blame us for anything that's happened. I don't deny that when we get out of here, some of our choices are going to be hard to explain, but we'll handle that together when the time comes, just like we told Kim we would. All I know is that I'm going to make it out of here. And so are you. I refuse to sit down here and wait for death, John. If I die, it won't be before I put in a decent effort to avoid it."

John didn't say anything.

"John, I know you aren't feeling well, but that's no reason to give up. We'll help you every step of the way. You just can't give up." To make my point I held out my hand for him. "Come on, John. Walk."

He didn't move, and I walked forward and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, John. This isn't you. You're not giving up. Hear me? We're going to get out of here. All you have to do is walk with me. Walk with me, John."

Still John didn't move. I pulled my hand away and took a step back, trying to think what to do.

"John, all those events we've been through don't show that death is inevitable. It's not our fate. The fact that we've survived all those things shows that we're meant to. We're meant to get out of here, and we will."

John wasn't even looking at me. Even Scully and Mulder weren't sure. They were staring at me with disbelieving looks, and then looking out at the mountains, and the green patch in the distance. I could see their minds debating it. John had shut down. I could only think of one more thing to do to persuade them that it would be all right.

I pulled up my bag and put it over my shoulders. "You don't believe me? I'll prove it to you." My bag on my back, I straightened up and turned around, roughly choosing a route to the green land, and locking the image in my mind. "I'm going for help. When I make it, I'll bring help for you."

"I'll see you in a few days," I said. I gave them a smile, blew them a kiss, and then turned and walked off.

*

It was the biggest gamble of my entire life. I wasn't just gambling with my life, or with theirs, but also with our friendship. But even though it was a risk, I was fairly certain that I wouldn't get far before they came after me. If I had done the same thing before all this happened, then they would let me go, but I knew that we had all become much closer since the plane crash, and I knew they would worry about me enough to chase.

We had also let Holly and Brad go off by themselves, and I was guessing that they still felt bad enough about that to not let it happen again. I knew they'd chase, but I still meant every word of what I had said. We were going to get out of here, and leaving them alone for a moment would help them sort themselves out. They would realise that I was serious, and that I was not willing to hang around and wait to die.

In the time it took them to catch up with me, I'd hiked off most of my anger. It was just so ridiculous that they would sit there and choose death over trying to make it, and I was willing to do anything to change it.

I'd hiked for nearly twenty minutes before I heard shouts behind me. They'd taken a little longer than I thought, but when I turned around to face them, I could guess why. John was looking upset, and Scully's determination showed that they must have had a heated argument in my absence.

The three of them stopped in front of me. Scully and Mulder just casually gazed around at the surrounding snow. It was John who spoke.

He took a deep breath. "Monica, I'm sorry." Another deep breath. "I guess I just lost control for a moment."

I gave him a nod of acceptance, but I still wanted to dig a little deeper. "You seemed fairly sure that we were going to die."

He nodded with exhaustion and wandered over to a rock, leaning against it. "I was just feeling so bad this morning, you know? I mean, I compare myself now to how I was over a week ago, before this happened. Do you remember how tired we were then? I was so tired I fell asleep on the plane. And then the plane crashed, and we had injuries and deaths, and suddenly everyone's depending on you to be strong. But it just kept going. We've had some tough cases, but nothing has ever come close to the experience of being stuck up here. I was already tired, but you just keep going, because you're needed. But then we lost those three unconscious agents, and then Holly, and it just eats away. I just can't figure it out. I'm so damn tired, Monica. And then we lost Kim, Skinner and Follmer. And when we were hiking yesterday, I just couldn't get them out of my head. We're taking a risk. This is the biggest risk I've ever taken, and after everything we'd already been through, I mean, I was far from my best. After that, I just wondered how long it was going to take for us to end up like Skinner. Frozen. I just..." tears appeared in his eyes. "I'm just tired."

He looked so upset that I immediately forgot about everything and walked up to him, putting my arms around his shoulders and pulling him to me in a hug. He hugged me back, firmly holding me in his arms and burying his face in to my neck.

We broke apart a few seconds later, and I took a step back so that Mulder and Scully were in our circle again.

"We all feel that way, John," I said. "It's not just you. It's been tiring for everyone. First when we crashed, and taking care of Holly, only to end up making the biggest mistake of all by falling asleep. I felt so guilty, but you bottle it up, because there's Kim, and others, who are still worse off than you are. So we dealt with Kim, chasing her across the slopes, which is tiring in itself, and then I stayed with her, holding her, all night. And just when I thought I might get a second for myself, we got that newsflash that the blizzards were coming, and Brad goes off and says he wants to leave. And then of course, it was another disaster. More pain and emotional turmoil. I was so sick of it all, John. And then I woke up the next morning, only to discover that Dana had a new idea for survival -" I gave Dana an apologetic look, but she only smiled in understanding. "And my God, John, I don't know how we ever got through that. And again, when you think you've got a minute and let your guard down, something else happens. An avalanche. And I'm so incredibly tired, on all levels, but then Dana and I are digging for you! And all I can think of is what if we're too late? But we made it, and had a short break before all the disaster with Kim and Skinner, and then to get hypothermia, which drains me yet again, and suddenly I'm fighting for my life in your arms. Then we have to leave anyway, up here, and with all that..." I couldn't help laughing, "...John, I don't just understand how you feel, I know. I am so tired. Walking out here is just as unappealing to me as it is to you. But I'm not going to sit down and die now. Otherwise, why did I bother to survive everything else? I want to make it out of here."

John was looking down at the snow. "I want to make it out of here too, Monica. I want it so much. But I don't know if we have the strength to do that. Like you just said, we've been through so much. I don't know if either of us have the strength to walk across all those hills. How do you plan to do that?"

It was Scully who answered that one. "The same way you both survived everything else."

I had a feeling I knew what she was hinting at, but John had absolutely no idea.

She smiled at the look on John's face and explained. "You said it yourself, Monica. 'Don't ever think you're alone'. You said it to Kim that night we chased her. And I think that that's exactly how we've all made it through everything. Everyone has had their weak points, but they've had strong ones too. When you think you can't go on any further, suddenly someone comes along and helps you. Like when Kim was upset. She thought she couldn't handle it, but then we were there for her. Or even later when we found her, and we were digging through that snow..." she stopped and looked at me, gulping. "I mean, if it hadn't been for you, Monica, I would have never made it back up to the top of that cliff."

I couldn't help smiling. It was a sweet moment.

Mulder made it sweeter. "I'll second that. When that avalanche hit, that was the most terrifying minute of my entire life. I had no idea you and Scully had survived. After a while I thought it was the end for us, but then I felt you kick me, and it hurt, but I'll forgive you for it since you saved my life."

I smiled. I knew he meant it. I could remember how shocked he was when I unburied him, and the way we'd hugged. That had been one of Mulder's weaker points of the last week.

John had been thoughtful, but then he walked away from the rock and threw an arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer. "You have been pretty amazing, Monica."

I waved my hand and shook my head. "You're missing the point. It's not just me. Like Dana said, we've all had our good times and bad times. You've all been great too. Those times when I thought I couldn't go on, you've all been amazing. Like when Brad died. I never thought I'd make it through that night, but then everyone was there for me. Everyone let me talk about him, everyone asked questions, for my benefit. And then, John, you were there." I glanced at him, and one look in his eyes told me he remembered holding me while I cried. "And that wasn't the only time. When I collapsed, searching for you in that blizzard, you and Mulder were there for me. You both carried me all the way back to the plane, and then helped me with my clothes..." I trailed off. I didn't need to complete the sentence. "I mean, you were all strong for me, then. It's like Scully says. It was one of those times when I didn't think I could go on. There was no way. But then I let go, and everyone else supported me. It's not the blankets or dry clothing that made me better, and able to cope. It was the fact that you had been there. The fact that I didn't have to worry about anything, because I knew I could trust you."

All the emotion was getting to me, and I felt tears come to my eyes. I quickly wiped them away. I wasn't going to be the first one to cry.

I'd momentarily lost the thread I'd been on, but Dana completed things for me. "John, it's okay to be sick. We understand that. But when you think you can't go on, that's why we're here. You might not think there's a chance, because you're not as strong and tough as you were, but none of us are. The point is, we don't want to die. I'm not going to wait for it. We have lost so many others, and I don't care if the families won't understand why we've done what we've done. I don't care, as long as I can get out of here to have a chance at explaining it."

"I agree," I said. "I just have to try, John. Even just for the people we've lost. We owe it to them to make it out of here. And you're allowed to be doubtful. You're entitled to lean on me, or any of us, as much as you want. Just as long as you don't stop. When I was sick, the one thing Scully told me to do was to keep my eyes open. It's the same thing. John, we'll take care of everything else for you. You just keep your legs walking. Because we're here. Like it or not, I want to make it out of here, but I refuse to leave without the three of you. So you're coming with me. I'm not leaving you behind."

John smiled. "Says the one who walked off on us half an hour ago."

I grinned and looked down. He knew very well why I had done that.

He tightened his arm around my shoulders. "Thanks."

I put my arm around his waist. "Thank me when we're out of here. Ten days and I haven't had a single cup of coffee."

Mulder smiled and squeezed Scully's shoulder, then reached down for his bag. "I think that's a hint that she wants to go."

Scully picked up her own bag, which she'd thrown down on the rocks while we were talking. "It's not a hint, it's an order. We have a patch of green to aim for. That's good enough for me. Let's go."

They worked their way around us, leading the way. John and I pulled our own bags back over our shoulders, and then slowly followed them. John smiled and then reached out a hand toward me. I slid my hand in to his and he held it warmly within his own. Then we walked off together down the slippery path to civilisation.

"Everything's going to be all right, Mon," said John.

I smiled. John was smiling again. Mulder and Scully were happy. The sky was still clear, and we had a goal. He was right. We were going to be fine.

*  
THE ELEVENTH NIGHT

It was hard to judge distances in the mountains. From the mountain peak, it had looked like a long way. Which it was. But it wasn't quite as long as we thought. As we began to realise that it was actually within a day's walking distance, I considered that maybe it was our growing pessimism that made it seem further than it really was. To walk when you are emotionally drained is difficult no matter how far it is. But now that we were all somewhere near stable, or even happy, the walk didn't bother us.

We continued walking long after sunset. It wasn't much further, and we all agreed that we preferred to keep walking than to stop for sleep. We had reached a section of the hike which was mainly downhill, and we knew that the lower we walked, the warmer we would get. We kept telling ourselves that it was just another hour before we stopped, but then the green fields and trees starting to come in to sharper focus, and we found ourselves keeping going. No one wanted to stop. The sight of green so close sent us in to an emotional flip, and suddenly resting seemed crazy. I wanted to get there. I didn't care if we walked all night. I didn't care that my legs were tired. It had been eleven days since I'd seen grass, or trees, and I wanted to collapse on it and kiss it. I wanted to breathe in the scent and feel the dirt under my fingernails. Funny how I'd never appreciated it before. In the past I thought snow was beautiful. Now I hated it. I'd had enough.

As we got nearer, we started to find signs of civilisation. An odd tree here and there and pieces of rubbish. I've never been so happy to see litter. But the thing made me sure that we were finally saved was when we worked our way through a short stretch of forest and Dana suddenly let out a yelp.

"Mulder!" she shouted, pointing in to the distance.

John and I had been walking a little behind and we rushed to catch up. Then we saw.

"A fence," I said. A wire fence that bordered a field. If there was a fence and a field, there had to be a house not too far away.

"I can't believe it," said John. He was staring as though the low light was deceiving him and making him see things that weren't there.

"Sceptic to the end," muttered Mulder.

I grinned. "You know, if you don't mind, I'd like to get out of here."

We didn't immediately hurry out as I thought we would. Dana wanted to stop and bury the food we had brought with us. We wouldn't get another chance to dump it later. So we spent five minutes burying it, and then we hurried over to the fence, climbed between the lines of wire and headed out in the paddock, looking around for a house.

We soon found it. It was a brick house, and though there were no lights on, I had the feeling that someone was home. We were saved. We paused at the second fence to admire it, taking a moment to look at each other with giddy smiles and tears of exhaustion. After a moment I gently pulled on John's arm.

"Come on. Let's see if there's anyone home."

*  
DAY TWELVE The Hospital

"Mulder, you're not supposed to be in here."

I had been put in a room with Dana, and now she was glaring at him from over in her bed by the window. I looked between them, and then smiled when I saw John poke his nose around the corner after Mulder. Both were still in their hospital gowns.

John shrugged. "We got bored."

They shut the door again and came around to sit with us, John on the edge of my bed and Mulder on Dana's. I was sitting up, having just finished my second meal in a row. I was so hungry. John glanced at the empty tray and gave me a smile.

"It's funny, isn't it? It's the first time in my life that I've enjoyed hospital food," he said.

I turned around the plastic hospital cup in my hands. It was empty now. I'd drank it all.

Mulder couldn't resist. "No coffee, then?"

I smiled and pointed at another empty cup on my tray. "They tried to keep it from me, but I soon made them give in."

Mulder gave an understanding smile. "I know the feeling. For a second there they tried to make me use a bed pan. They didn't get away with that one, either."

Dana rolled her eyes. "You can't resist, can you? The idea of actually behaving yourself is just too much."

"They have flushing toilets, Scully. It's paradise. I hadn't seen one in so long that I'd almost forgotten how to use them."

I grinned. Dana was joking. We all agreed with Mulder. Compared to the plane and the mountains, the hospital was a five star resort.

She suddenly turned serious. "Have you heard anything about our families?"

"They said they'd be here soon," said John. "I talked to one of the nurses and she said they're only letting in immediate family, with ID. Apparently the media want to talk with us and have been trying to get in."

Scully frowned and opened her mouth to comment on what she thought of the media when there was a wave of voices coming from outside our door and suddenly it burst open, hitting the wall, while in came our relatives.

My mom and dad practically ran toward the bed and threw themselves down on it. John grinned as my mother threw her arms around me and pulled me close, holding me so tight that I wouldn't be surprised if she broke a couple of ribs.

"Monica! Oh my Monica!" she shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks. "We prayed to God to look after you and our prayers were answered. You're okay." She gave my body another tight squeeze. I let my head rest on her shoulder. It was so good to see them both. "I thought I'd never see you again. Oh, my girl..."

"It's good to see you, too," I said, hearing tears in my own voice. I pulled away a little to look at my dad, who was standing beside the bed. "Both of you."

My dad always had trouble finding words when he was emotional, but he moved forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and that said enough.

My mom turned to look at Mulder, Scully and John, who were all watching.

"And these are your friends?" she asked, not bothering to wait for an answer. "It's good to meet you. I'm so glad you're all right. They gave up on you days ago." She turned back to me, and suddenly put her hands on my waist, her small fingers poking me in the stomach and in the sides.

"You're so thin!" she said. "You've lost so much weight!" She gave me a puzzled look. Obviously she'd been expecting me to emerge unchanged. "What happened to you out there?"

My smile fell. I couldn't answer that question. She would be told sometime, but I wasn't ready to give all the details. I looked across to the others for help. They were no longer smiling. They knew how I felt. I would give my mom the essential facts, but nothing more.

I hesitated. "It's just... it's just been a long week."

She seemed puzzled my lack of information, but she quickly covered it and gave me a smile, putting her hand to my hair. "Of course. You're all had a hard week. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

The awkward silence was broken by the door flying open again, this time revealing Dana's mother, and John's parents. The three of them were just as enthusiastic as my mother was. Dana soon found herself in hug just as tight as the one I'd just had, and John's parents were crying so much that they couldn't even find any words. They hugged him in silence.

My mom brought my attention back to her. She reached down for my hands, holding them gently within her own. "You've been through so much, Monica. You need a break." She glanced at my dad, and I had a feeling I knew what was coming. "Come back to Mexico with us. Just for some time away. Come home."

I saw Mulder watching over her shoulder. He was wondering what my answer was going to be.

I felt another tear slip down my cheek. My mom was being so nice, but she just didn't understand. I hadn't been expecting them to. The only ones who understood were John, Dana and Mulder. The story would be reported worldwide, but they were the only ones who truly knew. I loved my parents, and I couldn't be happier to see them. I was so grateful for them flying up here to see me. But I could not go back to Mexico.

"I can't," I said. "I have to stay with them." I nodded in the direction of my three friends. She looked so disappointed that I couldn't help feeling guilty. "We just have a lot to sort through right now. But you're right. It would be good to see the family. Maybe I'll come down when it all settles down."

She smiled and squeezed my hands. Maybe she did understand. A little. She knew that a lot had happened up on the mountains that we weren't ready to talk about, and that I needed to be with the people I'd shared it with, until we dealt with it enough to go on with our lives.

I gave my mom another hug. I was still crying. It was extraordinary. Twelve days, and I still wasn't short of tears. "It's so good to see you, mom. I love you so much."

She smiled and held me. "We love you too, Monica."

*

Scully and John's parents had reacted the same way as mine. They tried to be comforting and loving, but they couldn't understand because they weren't there. It didn't matter, though. We'd made it out. We were all right. Now, it didn't matter what anyone thought. We would make it through it all, like we said we would when we were in the snow. We would deal with it together, when the time came. And that's what we were doing. That's why Mulder and John had come to our room, and that's why I told my mother I couldn't yet go to Mexico.

It was a strangely slow afternoon. The press still hadn't been allowed in. Not that we cared. I wasn't interested in talking to them. The rescue crews had been sent up in to the hills, after being given directions, and they were already collecting the bodies of our colleagues. No doubt they would get a lot of information for the media from that. We had also given them directions for the location of Kim and Skinner. We weren't sure they would find the spot on their own, but we were prepared to go back up there to help, if needed.

Our orders were to rest in hospital, until the doctors said we were 100% healthy. I was pretty sure we already were, but we definitely didn't mind the rest part. It was nice for the four of us to sit together. We weren't alone with our troubles, that way. We were comfortable with each other.

An unlikely visitor came mid-afternoon. A nurse knocked and opened the door, giving us a smile. "We have a visitor for you. A Mr Kersh from the FBI. Are you happy to see him?"

We knew Kersh would find a way in no matter what the nurse said, so we nodded, feeling that we might as well. It was now or later. Let's get the beating over with.

It was the time for unexpected surprises. It wasn't surprising that he had come to see us. With the loss of so many agents from the Bureau, it was natural for him to come up here and sort things out. But the surprises were how he did come to see us. The nurse stepped back and let him in, and I jaw nearly dropped.

Kersh had a bunch of flowers in his hands. I might have been able to excuse that as a formality, but he was wearing jeans as well. The suit was gone. He was wearing old sneakers, jeans and a casual shirt with a brown jacket. He looked nothing like the Deputy Director of the FBI. It was all wrong.

He stopped near the door. "Agents. It's good to see you."

None of us had had good experiences with Kersh, but he was trying to be nice, so we played along. We had no energy to be angry.

He held the flowers up for us, giving us a small, awkward smile. "I have no idea what they are, but I liked them. I thought you might like to have some, to smell them."

He put them on the bedside table beside me. I picked them up and brought them to my nose. The scent filled me and I smiled up at him. "They're beautiful. Thank you."

I passed them over to John, for him to smell, and then to the others.

Kersh put his hands back in his pockets. I couldn't get over how different he was. He could even be called likeable.

He spoke in a low, friendly voice. It was a tone I'd never heard him use before. "I've spoken with the crews who went up to the mountains. I can give you an update if you're interested."

Kersh being sensitive. I must be hallucinating.

And I wasn't the only one. "Well... yes. Bring us up-to-date," said John. Mulder and Dana were still watching carefully, not believing what they were seeing and not sure what to do about it.

"We've recovered sixteen of the eighteen bodies. They haven't yet been able to locate Kimberly and Assistant Director Skinner. Though they tell me that you're willing to help find them and that they won't be left up there."

Kersh looked down. I suddenly understood why he was being so nice. It wasn't like he was an outsider, like our families had been. Kersh knew every one of the people who were dead, and he would be feeling the tragedy quite deeply. He would have to deal with the media, and the families, and then try and bring the FBI back to functional again. We had lost two Assistant Directors. He would be having a nightmare managing everything.

"We've talked to the families. Some of them have come up here. The bodies are being taken back to Washington, where they'll be given a proper funeral. They've said they're going to wait a few days, though, to give everyone time. I've arranged so that you'll be notified of when and where the funerals are, if you want to attend."

I knew instinctively that we would be attending the funerals of Brad, Holly, Kim and Skinner. But we hadn't talked about the rest. We would probably be worn out after four of them, but then I still felt bad about the other fourteen, too.

Kersh looked at the wall behind Mulder. He was thinking, trying to find courage for his next words. "There's some other things you need to be aware of. The rescue crews have drawn some conclusions based on the states of some of the recovered bodies."

I exchanged uneasy looks with my three friends. This was one of the things we had been dreading.

Kersh went on. "You don't need to worry. The minute the news spread of your survival, the experts were telling us to expect it. It's already been leaked to the press. You'll have to suffer some negative reactions, of course, but I think the majority are on your side. Some of the families might want to have a few words with you, though." Kersh brought his head up again. "But whatever happens, I can promise you the FBI is on your side. We'll defend you if there's any trouble."

Dana and Mulder were still speechless, so I filled the gap. "Thank you, sir."

"The FBI is giving you all a week of leave, to recover. You can imagine that things are a little hectic now, anyway. It's going to take that long to sort everything out." He a quick breath, as if he'd said everything he wanted to say. He was going to turn back for the door when he thought of something else. "The press want to take interviews. I'm leaving it up to you to decide whether you want to do that or not." He made an effort to smile. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. You just take it easy. Get some rest."

He turned and headed for the door. I couldn't stand it any longer. He looked so sad, and the look on his face was one which would be reflected throughout the whole of the FBI. Maybe we weren't alone, after all. "Thank you for coming to see us, sir."

He had the door open, but gave us a smile over his shoulder. "Get well soon."

The door clicked closed.

*

"Pinch me," said Mulder. He was sitting on the edge of Scully's bed, a look of impressed shock on his face.

John was on his feet still, and he turned around to look at him. "I can't believe it. I've never seen him that nice before."

"It makes sense when you think about it," said Scully. "The whole FBI is going to be upset over what happened. We've lost so many people that we've all worked with for so long. Kersh will be worn out. He's left trying to manage it all."

I leant back in to the pillows on my bed. "I'd never thought of that when we were up in the snow. It never crossed my mind."

There was a short silence. John came to sit back on my bed, beside my legs.

"He said he's leaving us to decide if we want to talk about it," said John. "What do you want to do about that?"

Dana didn't hesitate. She'd obviously thought about it a lot. "I don't want to say anything. There is no reason why we should, other than to satisfy people's curiosity. It's none of their business. I'm willing to talk privately to some of the families, the ones we need to, but I have no interest in giving a public statement."

That wasn't too far off what I was thinking. "I agree. Most of it I want to keep between ourselves. Like you said, there are a few families of certain people who we are going to need to talk to, but we'll handle that in private. But Dana, there's also the whole of the FBI and the country that's going to be grieving for those lost. I think we need to say something. Maybe only very brief, and in the broadest, most general terms, but we need to give them something. Just some facts about the crash, and things like that."

"You mean just the broad, general idea?" asked Mulder. "What the crash felt like, how cold it was, when we gave up on the rescue... things like that, right?"

"Right," I said. "Just a few details that don't matter. Nothing too deep or meaningful."

"And if they ask for more?" said John.

"Then that's their problem," I said. "We don't give any more than we're willing to part with. They can throw as many questions out there as they like. We don't have any duty to answer them. There are so many things that the average person doesn't need to know about. They won't get it, and we'll only make things tougher if we talk about it. We can handle it between ourselves. They don't need to know."

Dana nodded. "Okay then. I guess I can agree to that."

John and Mulder also agreed, and I smiled. "Besides, we're all X-  
Files agents. No one here has ever cared what other people think of them. None of you have ever been bothered by having cameras on you on tough cases. This is no different. There is no reason to start caring now. We all know what happened. That's enough for me."

John smiled. "You're right, you know. I'm beginning to think there's some real wisdom in those words of yours."

"Words of mine?" I said, trying to remember what he was on about.

Dana smiled again. "Don't ever think you're alone."

Now it came back to me. The words I'd said to Kim. The words I'd said to John when he lost hope. None of us were ever alone. We had no reason to fear the consequences of our experience, or to fear that we could never recover from it, because we each had three other people who knew exactly how it had all happened. And that was enough. It was all it took. Like we'd promised so many days ago, we would deal with any problems together. We would go to the funerals together. We would talk to the families together. We didn't have to follow each other to the toilet any more, but we were still looking after each other. Just in a different way, that's all.

"So," said Mulder, reaching for Scully's tray to fill himself a cup of water. "I propose a new plan for us. A new life. Come on, grab your cups. I don't care if it's only water, we're having a toast."

I sat up and reached for my own cup, also filling it up again. I held it up, waiting for John and Dana to do the same.

Mulder held up his cup. "To a lack of snow, to beautiful food, and to the possibility of taking advantage of Kersh's kindness to get ourselves a pay rise."

I shortened it. "To a pay rise."

We drank and then lowered our cups, grinning.

"Now my turn," I said, checking there was still water in my cup. They all waited, still smiling and looking at me. It had been so long since I'd seen their beautiful smiles. "To my friends, who are finally smiling, and who are the three most incredible people anyone could ever be fortunate enough to work with."

We all raised our glasses.

"To friendship," said Dana, simply.

"To the smiles," said Mulder.

John put his free arm around my shoulders. "May there be plenty more."

*  
The End.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

First, a HUGE thank you to Lisa for betaing this for me. Lisa beta'd this as a WIP over the five weeks that I wrote it and has been very, very helpful. So thanks, Leese! Couldn't have done it without you.

Second, I feel I have to say something about where I picked up this idea. I had to fill in an hour before one of my exams in November, and I wandered into the library and somehow found the story of the Andes survivors. As I read, I was wondering how the agents would go in a similar position. That's where my story came from. I do want to say that my version is extremely different to the real one. I don't think my version is very realistic. It was just a fun idea. From the real story, I borrowed only a few events. I borrowed the idea of the cannibalism, and I borrowed the avalanche. That's it. All the other stuff in my fic, especially all the psychological stuff (eg Holly), is straight from my own insane mind.

Hope you enjoyed.


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